A Mishmash of Life

Step aboard the chaotic, character-filled world of the Royal Navy in the late 1950s — a time of discipline, danger, and dark humour. In A Mishmash of Life: The Royal Navy Years, former sailor Paul Burgess delivers a hilarious and deeply human memoir of his time as a teenage recruit. From cleaning the latrines of HMS Raleigh to braving the unpredictability of life on the high seas, Rees’s experiences are both uproariously funny and brutally honest. This is not a tale of heroism but of ordinary misfits surviving extraordinary institutions, a coming-of-age story that fans of This Is Going to Hurt and The Secret Barrister will relish. For readers who love military memoirs with grit, gallows humour, and a heart of gold.