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  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407030999
  • Imprint: Ebury Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

My Family and Other Strangers

Adventures in Family History




Jeremy Hardy takes us on a comic journey through the world of genealogy, as he searches his own family ancestry

When Jeremy Hardy decided to explore his ancestry it was, in part, to get to the bottom of his grandmother Rebecca's dubious claims that the family descended from a certain 17th-century architect and that, more recently, Jeremy's great-grandfather was a Royal bodyguard. Other legends ranged from the great aunt who ran illegal hooch during Prohibition to the wronged Victorian servant girl who bore an illegitimate Hardy, not forgetting the family's rightful claim to a large country estate.

Wild stories aside, Jeremy sets out to such diverse locations as the Croydon one-way system and the hostile waters around Malta in order to find traces of recognisable family traits and a sense of how he came to be. With wry humour and a keen eye for the absurd and the frustrating, Jeremy takes us on a by turns funny and moving journey into the world of family ancestry.

My Family and Other Strangers will be enjoyed by anyone who has tried to decipher the 1901 census records, or simply wishes they too had asked their grandparents more about their lives.

  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407030999
  • Imprint: Ebury Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336

About the author

Jeremy Hardy

Jeremy Hardy became a stand-up comedian in January 1984. His BBC Radio 4 work includes Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, The News Quiz, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue and You’ll Have Had Your Tea. He has also done various bits of television, most notably, Now Something Else with Rory Bremner, Saturday Live, Blackadder Goes Forth, Loose Talk, Jack and Jeremy’s Real Lives with Jack Dee and If I Ruled the World with Graeme Garden and Clive Anderson. He’s been in three films: Mike Figgis’s Hotel with Burt Reynolds, Oliver Irving’s How to Be with Robert Pattinson and Leila Sansour’s documentary, Jeremy Hardy v the Israeli Army, which involved a degree of personal risk. He has written columns for The Guardian and Red Pepper and has written three books: When Did You Last See Your Father, a spoof childcare guide; Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, based on the radio series; and My Family and Other Strangers, an examination of his lacklustre ancestry, published last year. More importantly, he is still a stand-up comic, performing his one-man show in theatres and arts centres throughout Britain and Ireland. He is also part of the live touring version of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. A kind soul in The Guardian wrote of him, 'In an ideal world, Jeremy Hardy would be extremely famous, but an ideal world would leave him without most of his best material.' He does not usually refer to himself in the third person.

Praise for My Family and Other Strangers

A great pleasure to read

Marcus Berkmann, Daily Mail

There is plenty that is interesting and touching and funny in this book

Guardian