The Gift of a Radio by Justin Webb review — the Radio 4 presenter’s childhood memoir | Culture

One of Justin Webb’s earliest reminiscences is of wanting his stepfather to drown. He had watched him dive into the water at Lulworth Cove and slice by it till he grew to become a pinprick within the distance. When Webb noticed him coming again, he felt a prickle of disappointment. That feeling, “like a moist little crime” towards the person his mom had married when he was two, lasted for years.

It’s a startling opening to a gripping memoir, and all of the extra startling since Webb is thought to tens of millions as an affable voice on radio and tv. He seems like a person who has had an easy glide from public faculty to the BBC studios the place, because the longest-serving presenter of Radio 4’s At this time programme, he