Broken Greek: A Story of Chip Shops and Pop Songs

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His parents, Chris and Victoria, speak it all the time at home and when Pete is four he’s taken on a two-month holiday to Greece and Cyprus. When Pete’s parents moved from Cyprus to Birmingham in the 1960s in the hope of a better life, they had no money and only a little bit of English. This was my secret weapon in the bid to make them see that I wasn’t like any other twelve ­ year-­old fans they’d met on tour – my loyalty to the Barron Knights predated even my own existence. A key moment in Pete Paphides’s memoir Broken Greek takes place when our young protagonist hears The Rubettes’ Sugar Baby Love for the first time and realises that, more than any other song in the world, this slice of bubblegum pop totally reflects his inner turmoil. Critics have tended to regard records by the likes of the Wombles as too ephemeral to be worthy of attention, but Paphides’ appraisals of such pop moments are among the many joys of Broken Greek.

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Clutched in my sweaty palm was the handle of a carrier bag containing assorted Barron Knights albums and singles. In the previous months, we’d seen Karen Kay, mother of Jamiroquai’s Jay Kay belting out standards in front of the Kings’ house band, and we’d seen Charlie Williams, the first black British comedian to appear on British prime-­time television. We’d waited outside Preedy’s three years earlier when Tom Baker came to Acocks Green to sign copies of the first ever Doctor Who Weekly. Paphides’s surrounding sensations are the sound of sizzling chips and the sharp olfactory tang of vinegar. We’re scared a lot of the time when we’re little and it’s something you don’t want to admit, especially when you have children of your own.Paphides carelessly scatters such brilliant metaphors; Mick Ronson on that famous Top of the Pops appearance singing “Starman” with Bowie looks like “a hod carrier in drag”.

Broken Greek by Pete Paphides review – a smash hit

Convinced that any refusal to smile was going to land me in deep trouble, the anxiety became overwhelming. There’s this idea that we’re in a critical world, there’s a “canon” and that’s the stuff we’re supposed to like. This coming-of-age story set in the Great Western Fish Bar in a Birmingham suburb is wonderfully told, but the meat in this dish is his parents’ tale. He fantasises about “kind, compassionate Sting” replacing his schoolteacher and taking a class about the latest Police hit Message in a Bottle. Maybe enough time has passed for me to really gun for that little guy, in all his naivety and goodwill, who turns up to the cabaret nightspot thinking: “This is going to be the night.in an article which I, naturally, kept and stuck to my wall, he said, ‘Brian tells me it’s the greatest thrill you can imagine to learn you’ve been chosen to play for England,’ before adding, ‘Well, I wouldn’t know. Never have the trials and tribulations of growing up and the human need for a sense of belonging been so heart-breakingly and humorously depicted. Well, comparing their 1977 album Russian Roulette and Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever songs is like comparing Studio 54 to singles night at Manchester Rotters. But decades later, when our paths crossed again, Miss Haylor confirmed all of them: the single-­file line of pupils snaking out of the classroom and into the corridor which ran alongside the school hall; the waist-­high bookshelves with large windows above them which allowed you to see the photographer summoning the next child in the queue to have their picture taken; the position you were expected to assume, which was right at the front of the stage with your little legs dangling off the side.