When young Michael crossed the stone bridge over the moat of a Dutch castle, he was entering another world. The England of his childhood lay behind him; an unknown life waited ahead.
In post-war Liverpool, he’d been the boy who didn’t join in — not because he didn’t want to, but because he hadn’t learned how. At home, no one said what they felt, and no one asked. He knew his mother loved him, but he didn’t feel her warmth.
Beyond that bridge, at a boarding school, there were friendships, a first love, but insecurity remained. When Henny arrived and showed her emotions, he struggled to understand her.
Belonging to Myself is the story of a man who finally discovered what he’d been missing all along: the ability to see and express what he felt. A memoir about silence, shyness, and the slow courage of learning to look inward — and to speak about what he found there.
