ABSTRACT
There’s a grand new book out by a chap called Bill Cullen: an Irish motor industry tycoon. It’s called ‘Its a long way from Penny Apples’, because that’s what his mother said to him when he was going into a multi-million pound deal. Cullen saw the film of Frank McCourt’s ‘Angela’s Ashes’ and promptly decided to tell his own version of a 1940’s Irish childhood. Like McCourt, he was one of the huddled urban poor; he lost siblings to the ills of poverty and slept twelve to a room. Like McCourt he received charity from the St Vincent de Paul Society and cuffs from the Christian Brothers. Like McCourt he had a strong mother who held the family together through unimaginable privations.
