No heating and Black Sabbath: Jack Reacher author Lee Child discusses growing up in Birmingham

Jack Reacher has become quite the sensation since it hit cinema screens in 2012.

The film version of Lee Child’s books starring Tom Cruise turned into a Hollywood hit, with the latest adaption coming in the form of an Amazon Prime series with Alan Ritchson in the title role.

The series – simply called Reacher – features Ritchson as the eponymous former police detective. It’s set to adapt 1997 novel The Killing Floor, which was the first Jack Reacher novel published by Lee Child.

James Dover Grant, known by his pen name Lee Child, is one of the most famous writers to come from the West Midlands. He was born in Coventry, and grew up in Handsworth Wood in Birmingham with his parents and brothers. He also attended Cherry Orchard Primary School in Handsworth Wood until the age of 11, and then King Edward’s School in Edgbaston.

Birmingham upbringing

Child has frequently discussed his life growing up in Handsworth Wood and his teenage years in the city.

No heating

In a recent column with the Daily Mail, he touched on life in the 1930s, growing up on Underwood Road in the Birmingham suburb where he lived from the age of four until he left for university at 18.

He wrote: “It was a typical 1930s suburban development – brick houses, tiled roofs, leaded windows – and our house had four bedrooms, the usual front bedroom, back bedroom, a small bedroom over the front door, and a fourth bedroom over the garage, which was mine at first, but it proved too cold.

“The house had no heating at all, except coal fires in the dining room and living room, plus a coal-fired water heater in the kitchen.”

Thriving city

In a previous interview with The Guardian, Child also described the city as ‘amazingly prosperous’ during his early years.

He also mentioned the huge workforces at factories and the impact the pollution had on the city. He wrote: “Pollution was insane. Rivers would catch fire. We had a patch of mud with two sickly trees, which with yearning irony we called Bluebell Woods. Except the mud was bubbling oil waste. If it got on your clothes they were ruined, and if it got on your skin you had to run home and clean it off with lighter fluid.”

Teenage school years and Black Sabbath

Child also wrote about his teenage years at King Edward’s School in Edgbaston, and going out into the city to watch live music - including Black Sabbath! In his Daily Mail piece, Child said he would mow a neighbour’s lawn so he would have one pound to go out and enjoy himself.

“That was enough for a night out,” he wrote. “Maybe two-and-six for a gig – including big names like Black Sabbath – plus three-and-six for 20 Player’s Number Six cigarettes, a bag of chips and a bottle of cider, with enough left over for the bus fare. All for a quid. Those were the days.”

Tough city upbringing

Child says that ‘every day was a fight’ growing up in Birmingham when he was younger, although it believes it stood him in good stead for his later years.

He wrote in the Daily Mail: “Every day was a fight, but I was a big kid and a good fighter, so I didn’t mind. It got worse when we got into a fancy high school (King Edward’s School).

“It set me up well though, I developed a scowl that still works today – would-be muggers have run away from me in America. Looking back, I can understand how much of Birmingham I internalised – the no-nonsense approach, to get the job done without any fuss or drama. It is this that has been the key to my life.

“At the end of the day, you can take the boy out of Birmingham, but you can’t take Birmingham out of the boy.”

Education at the library and a Brummie attitude

Child mentioned that the biggest gift from his formative years in Birmingham was reading.

He has said that at first, there was ‘nothing else to do’, so he ‘haunted the library’.

“When I started writing I had tens of thousands of books in my head,” he previously wrote in The Guardian. “Plus the Brummie attitude: no fuss, no drama, just get it done, and well, with a little quiet pride.”