Alan Johnson received a very warm welcome when he came into a full Baillie Gifford Main Theatre with Ruth Wishart who was to chair the session. She made a quick comment about, "Alan Johnson on my left - oh, I think he's well to the left of me!"
She went on to say that he was orphaned at the age of twelve and was then brought up by his sister. His mother Lillian (Lilly) had worked hard all her life, but died when she was 42. Wishart said that what came out in reading his new book, "This Boy" was a sense of personal modesty.
Asked about the levels of poverty when he was growing up, Johnson agreed that looking back on the 1950s as a 'good period' was overly simplistic as there was a great deal of real poverty in areas such as Glasgow and Edinburgh as well as many areas in England, particularly the north. For many there was no inside toilet and overnight it was common practice for many to have to use a bucket.
But Johnson stressed that the book was mainly about his mother, his sister and himself. He recalled he and his sister running errands for the elderly and then being scolded by his mother for taking money as he was told that, "you don't take money for these little jobs."
He said that the only thing he remembered about his father was that he was a brilliant musician, but he could not read music so everything was played by ear.
He recalled that his mother, Lilly, was in hospital one Christmas Day and when he and his sister went to visit her they met their father outside the hospital. He made them promise not to tell their mother that he was not living at home and after the visit he went back to the woman he was living with.
In spite of this Johnson said they had contact with 'a lot of good men' - his mother was one of a family of ten and all the sisters had married good men who were his role models.
He recalled a conversation with Tony Blair once in Downing Street, where after hearing a bit about Johnson's background, the PM said, "my goodness, Alan, you really are working class!" Asked if he was a fan of Tony Blair he said that this was not the moment to run down the last Labour Government.
Wishart pointed out that he had left school at 15, yet went on to become Education Secretary. Did he not find this rather strange?
Johnson said that his sister also left school at 15, as it was the norm then for working class children. Johnson added that while involved in education he was pleased to have introduced free school meals in Hull as this model was copied elsewhere to combat malnutrition. He was also interested in children in care who he felt needed special attention. He himself, although not in care, recalled being caned for lateness and also once just for wearing red socks because at that time corporal punishment was accepted as being quite normal. He added that the red socks were a sort of protest.
As Health Secretary he had tried to cut waiting times and had managed to get them down from 18 months to 18 weeks by the time he handed over. He stressed that what he wanted to see in the NHS was 'collaboration' and he accepted that elements of the NHS went too far when he was Health Secretary in the process of bidding against each other for services. He pointed out that he had stopped well short of the plans currently being implemented by Jeremy Hunt and wondered what Hunt would next be blaming the last government for.
Asked about his feelings on Ed Miliband and the charge that he had let things slide during the summer, Johnson refuted this and said that it was always easier for a government to appear active as civil servants could be instructed to issue statements and policy announcements, however, things when in Opposition were more difficult. In the past Labour had gone around talking to people sitting on beaches at the seaside, but really he thought that this had lost more votes than it gained!
He said that he backed Ed Miliband and thought his ideas on trade union voting would be good for the party. He felt that the row with Unite was something which would pass and later not seem significant. He stressed that he felt it morally wrong for trade union leaders to go to meetings with a pocket full of votes from people who had not been asked how they wished to vote.
Asked whether he wanted to be the Labour leader, he said he really felt that 'he was not up to the job' as he put it. There were too many things that you had to give up to lead your party and he felt that younger talent was needed.
Finally Ruth Wishart asked him what his view was of the referendum for Scottish independence - he dismissed this by saying that he thought it had basically already been won for those wishing to stay in the Union and the vote would be 'a formality'.
Alan Johnson came across as a thoroughly decent politician and a very good man. He displayed a degree of honesty which was very welcome and greatly appreciated by his audience with whom he clearly struck a most sympathetic note.
This Boy by Alan Johnson (Bantam Press, 2013)