His mother did not love him, and informed him of this fact often. She spent most of his childhood trying to find someone to whom she could give him away to. In his new book Simon Dawson decides not just to face up to the emotional damage his mother inflicted on him, but to try to understand her and achieve some kind of reconciliation before she dies. Was it his innate unloveableness, or was it something that would now be called postnatal depression. Warm, witty and honest, the book charts the humour, the anger, the confusion, the hurt, the hate and the desperation of a mother who can't give love and a son longing for it.