My Rude Awakening by E C Featherstone

It’s hard to know where to start with this memoir! I’ll be totally up front – I wasn’t sure it was a book for me. The cover suggests a polo-playing toff who pursues a woman and flies helicopters in the RAF. Now I’m not averse to a bit of Jilly Cooper and well-done smut, nor a bit of Guy Ritchie as in his Netflix series The Gentleman either. The blazon ‘Uncut Version’ on the cover did worry me though – uncut how? As in before final edits, or as in say an erotic way? Hmm. But too late!

By then I’d been seduced by the offer of a hamper of goodies accompanying a proof of the book. I was up front with the publicist saying that I hoped she didn’t think I was being greedy by saying yes. (The jury’s out on that!) In due course, a lovely little hamper arrived. Nestling in the straw I found a pack of superior crackers, a little plate and a cheese knife, a jar of stem ginger, a earthenware camembert baker and a bottle of the King’s Ginger liqueur, plus the book of course and a personally addressed letter from the author. It was a tempting gesture – thank you. And the ginger liqueur is indeed delicious!

Time to get to the book itself. The author’s name is a pseudonym, and other names have been changed for their protection. Beginning around a brief prelude around introducing Charles’ parents Arthur and Fran, who calls her son ‘Sunbeam’, changing prep schools and a dyslexia diagnosis, we get gradually get into Charles’ life story. He tells us about Rockwell Manor, their home in Berkshire, close to important venues in the life of an upper class country gent – the Berkshire Shooting School and the Guards Polo Club in particular. We meet his beloved dog, Osric, a spaniel in training to be a gun dog, and then his grandfather who lives in a cottage on the estate now. He and his grandfather have a little ritual after their dinners together – and it’s here that the contents of the hamper come in; camembert on a cracker with ginger and the liqueur. This was a good start. A few years later and Charles introduces us to polo, which he was already a fine player of, his father having a team and string of horses.

Things really get started when Charles starts at in the RAF where he meets Jamie Blackwood at the initial officer training, and the pair are assigned to RAF Shawbury for helicopter flight training. Charles is a natural at it, Jamie has to work harder. Shawbury is close to Jamie’s home and a trek back to Berkshire, so Jamie invites Charles there where he meets Charlotte, Jamie’s beautiful younger sister, and Georgina – Gigi – Jamie’s 43-year-old beautiful mother. Guess which one Charles falls for…

Charles is a very proper young man, still a virgin, and it takes a good while before he gives in to Gigi’s charms, and we get the first of many lengthy sex scenes. Ere long, the pair are engineering meetings and taking every opportunity to enjoy their love-making, described in explicit detail by the author. After reading through the first one, it went on so long I’m afraid I just ignored the rest, finding them as always excruciating to read. However, I did enjoy Gigi and Charles’ clandestine romance which lasted for several years before they decided they must give each other up. I just didn’t need the constant erotica. Another thing I didn’t need, but some will love, was every time a song is mentioned in the text, there are QR codes so you can play it alongside reading. Sadly, our musical tastes rarely aligned, Whitney Houston doesn’t do it for me.

Where the memoir came alive for me was in the RAF training and the camaraderie between the young pilots who finally graduate and get their postings. Charles, Jamie and Will all apply to join an Apache Attack Helicopter Squadron, and get accepted. Will will be Charles’ Co-Pilot Gunner on their first proper mission in the Middle East. Sadly, it ends in a crash, Will becoming a ‘Hero 2 Zero’ quadriplegic. Charles is less severely injured but his actions do save Jamie and his crew, however, PTSD beckons and Charles writes with honesty about his mental health, and one reason for him writing the memoir was as therapy.

To summarise, for me this memoir was very much a curate’s egg – good in parts. A product of COVID lockdown, it was also too long; at nearly 500 pages it needed a better editor, so my original question as to what ‘uncut’ meant is correct both ways! Featherstone plans it to be available in three different versions: uncensored, censored and YA, the latter edit intended so the author’s son can read his father’s story in due course, although for now only the uncensored version exists. Not being a consumer of erotica, I think I would have been happier with the censored version as long as it keeps the RAF parts in tact. The memoir is published by H2Z Foundation Press, presumably a company set up by the author, with the company name being a tribute to his lost colleague.

Although it is hard to come to terms with the life of privilege that Featherstone has apparently had, he does acknowledge it, and it is to his credit that he behaves like a gentleman throughout. There is a good memoir to be edited out of this book. As it is, with the different threads, I was a little unsure who the intended audience is. It’ll be interesting to see how he continues in the second volume in which we may find out how he went on from the services to become a successful entrepreneur.

Source: Proof for review – thank you to the author and Midas PR.

H2Z Foundation Press, hardback, 492 pages. BUY at Amazon UK via my affiliate link.