Streeting was diagnosed at the age of 38 in May 2021, and just two months later, he was declared cancer-free after the removal of one of his kidneys. On the one hand, the Labour MP for Ilford North is refusing to fight as a combatant in the late Martin Amis’s war against cliche; in this book, cheeks tend to be rosy red, and working-class matriarchs are always “strong”.

He has no discernible self-pity and seems never to judge anyone, not even those who (the reader may think) at times let him down very badly. In the book, the key moment comes when his mother, having finally found a home that is both affordable and big enough for all her children, tells her son he can leave his father’s to live with her once again. But then their subsequent relationships fracture, too, and your heart breaks for their son, who’s so accommodating, so ready to accept and even to love every potential step-parent; so sweetly devoted to his baby half-siblings. He read History at Selwyn College, Cambridge and began his political vocation as President of the National Union of Students.

Photograph: Phil Fisk/The Observer Wes Streeting outside Fullwell Cross library in Ilford, January 2022. Wes Streeting joined The Graham Norton Radio Show with Waitrose to talk about the importance of state education and his new book.

An inspiring, witty East End growing up memoir by leading Labour MP Wes Streeting, vividly portraying the power of family and education to help him escape poverty and transform his life. In spite of the disloyalty he feels, Streeting announces that he’d rather stay put; he cannot face any more disruption. A moving and inspiring hymn to the ups and downs of life – to love, to adversity and above all courage.He knew he could draw on the strengths in childhood to eventually come out, and to go on and face his now successful struggle with kidney cancer. Hearing Loop: Essex Book Festival has a mobile Roger Pen hearing loop system, which needs to be booked by individuals in advance at least five days before the event.

In 'One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up' he brings to life the poverty, humiliation, and incredible struggle for them choosing whether to feed the meter and heat the flat, put carpet on the floor, or food on the table. Although he's no longer with us and didn't live to see me elected to Parliament, I can almost hear him in my head saying, 'Yeah, but you work with more crooks than I did in Parliament',” he joked.

Though he wears his Arsenal shirt to school on non-uniform days in the hope of warding off bullies, he also brandishes a copy of Tony Blair’s New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country on the coach to games lessons. Speaking to Graham Norton about his memoir, the 40-year-old reflected: “Without a great state education, I always joke I might have ended up in prison like my granddad rather than Parliament.