Parsons, Tony

English author and journalist, born and grew up as the only child in a working-class family in Romford, Essex. When Tony Parsons was five years old the family moved to Billericay, also in Essex, where he grew up. He attended Barstable Grammar School in Basildon, which he left at the age of 16 with rotten grades. In the years immediately after that, he had several short, menial jobs, including a period in a gin distillery. In his free time, he wrote a novel about so-called skinheads and their sub-culture, and managed to get it published as The Kids (1976). It received few and not particularly positive reviews, but contributed to his getting a job the same year with the prominent music magazine New Musical Express which meant he could move to London.