Stanley I Presume?

<p>A rip-roaring and hilarious memoir from Stanley Johnson – father of London mayor Boris Johnson.</p> <p>Stanley's story begins with a loud bang – when his father an RAF pilot in the Second World War crash-lands a Wellington bomber in a Devon airfield. A few years later Stanley's parents buy a sheep farm on nearby Exmoor where Stanley does much of his growing up. Stanley would keep his links with this much-loved rural idyll throughout his life – while going on to become an explorer author occasional politician and also one of the world's first environmentalists.</p> <p>On leaving school in 1958 Stanley travelled alone through South America – hitching rides across the jungle on Brazilian Air Force planes – and shortly afterwards rode a motorcycle 4000 miles from London to Afghanistan tracing the route of Marco Polo with two friends. Stanley went on to do various adventurous jobs before working for the billionaire John D Rockefeller III the World Bank the United Nations and the European Union.</p> <p>Stanley married and started a family young – Boris was born in New York when his father was twenty-three – and while Boris would go on to become big news the family's forbears also provide quite a story as Stanley finds out. For the Johnson family's roots are not just in the West Country but in Turkey too – where as Stanley discovers his politician grandfather Ali Kemal was torn to pieces by an angry mob. Stanley visits a Turkish village where the locals are blonde – later he learns that he and Boris are direct descendants of George II.</p> <p>A sparkling raconteur and experienced thriller writer in 'Stanley I Presume?' Stanley Johnson tells great stories in an unsurpassable style.</p>