REVIEW: Scarred For Life – Volume 2

A second volume of the Scarred For Life books is certainly something to get your teeth into if you’re a fan of the likes of Grotbags scaring the living daylights out of you whilst she claimed to be all about innocent fun, or you might remember Dark Towers freaking the hairs on the back of your neck whilst you sneaked a peek at the TV behind your hands or were you the kid that daren’t go upstairs on your own after watching Crimewatch, if you were, you were either stupid or brave, I was neither.

The thing with this sort of book is it reeks of nostalgia, and who doesn’t need a fresh breath of remembering how good the good old days were whilst we’re at the height of a world wide pandemic. Let’s for instance about Grange Hill. Back in the 80’s it was all about the dark post cain smacking days, with teachers having an aroma as bad as Darth Vada, seemingly if each teacher were to be unmasked as being Luke’s father no child would be surprised. Then there was the bully’s of the school, many you could resonate with, you know the type, a couple of years older than the child they are bullying, the bully coming from potentially a troubled childhood, and the act of bullying was all for what? A sweet, trying to look good infront of their friends, all of which would leave lasting scars on those at the wrong end. Scarred For Life indeed.

Other highlights include Noseybonk, the truly freaky character with a massive nose that would be seen lurching around doing stupid things, if no one had nightmares about him you weren’t normal, The Boy From Space is an all time classic of the period. The soundtrack, sung by the famed child’s programme favourite Derek Griffiths, has a spooky edge whilst the story line is the stuff that made ET and Flight of the Navigator as enthralling to fans the world over. The best or worst part of the programme was The Boy from Space father having a similar look to someone you’d see on Crimewatch but with a silver face and appearing to be wearing a Star Trek uniform whilst trying to track down their son on wasteland. Just magnificent.

There’s so much packed into this jam packed book including Theatre Box, Dr Who, Tales of the Unexpected, World in Action, Stranger Danger and many many more highlights that will no doubt be either unexpected trips down memory lane or have you scrambling all over google for anything you can find on those favourite programmes you had wished you had forgotten about.

Scarred For Life – Volume 2 is available via the following link