Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

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Alongside that are his end-of-chapter discussions with his therapist in September 2003, shortly after attempting suicide. So many books disappear from my mind almost as soon as I finish them, but I know this one will stay with me. The descriptions of nature, wildlife and the countryside brims with his passion for his favoured subjects. I’m not a fan of overly detailed descriptions if I feel they don’t suit a purpose, and that combined with repetitive segments about his love of animals made this difficult to get through at times. His bedroom was a cross between a zoo and a museum with jam jars full of frog spawn, snakes in fish tanks and drawers full of skulls, eggs and deceased insects.

Within all these different forms of writing the chapters are divided by recurring themes (‘the bird’) or newly introduced ones. It’s beautifully written and the messages and story stayed with me long after I turned the last page. The interests that make him detached from others as he lives in an almost solitary world of natural wonder. Rarely does a book make you feel like you know the author personally by the end but this one really does.The boy (nearly always a boy) who was the clever geek, no friends, rarely spoke, terrible at PE, hair, clothes and shoes always wrong, often badly bullied or ignored.

It’s brave because it is a self-portrait of a rather weird kid – not good with people and not a bundle of laughs, it seems. The deeply relatable memoir of a boy growing up on the edge of a nowhere town, not really grasping how people work and much happier wandering the half-wild edgelands or engrossed in his own worlds. Parts of the book, especially those that deal with a suicide attempt, are upsetting and difficult to read. I realised that growing up watching him on The Really Wild Show meant I was watching someone who thought like me, experienced life the way I do. Chris Packham is a well known presence on our TV screens, presenting The Really Wild Show from 1986 to 1995 and most recently Springwatch.These were selected by a panel of experts from more than 270 titles nominated by the public last year. Many are written in the first person and describe his life when he was around 7 or 8 and again when he was in his mid teens. Chris brings to life his childhood in the 1970s, from his bedroom bursting with birds' eggs and jam jars, to his feral adventures. Chris Packham is a true champion for wildlife and his love for nature is delightfully obvious when you read his book.