‘PORK pies also became more important to Damian’s life that year and have always been a source of happiness and cholesterol.’

For pork pies to feature prominently in the mind of a young lad, says a lot about his character, as readers of an entertaining new book will discover.

Pies were part of family life for the Carters, Damian being the youngest of four siblings born to Thomas and Anne.

The family referred to the pork pie as a ‘Kevin Stickie’, named after their local butcher.

‘Stickie had a way with pork and cold-water pastry and could craft a pie in under ten minutes. His attention to detail was haphazard, but what he lacked in finesse he made up in spades with sheer enthusiasm and sweat.’ A family pie, if sliced thinly, could feed a family of 17.

Stickie is among the many characters brought to life in Damian Carter’s book July 20th A Goon Landing, based on the life of the author, who grew up in Bradford.

A pie-eating family with wool-tester Thomas and pipe-smoking hairdresser-cum nursery nurse-cum-children’s entertainer Anne at its helm, the Carters lives are simple, yet never straightforward.

Damian recounts their ups and downs with, the reader imagines, a wry smile and bouts of uncontrollable laughter.

“When I wrote the book my only focus was to make myself laugh, and if other people find it funny that is brilliant,” he says.

Not the best looking boy ‘with his dysfunctional nose and misplaced hair’, there is no doubt Damian’s upbringing was happy. He was ‘blessed with a plentiful supply of aunties, whose knowledge of wool and tabards had led to a life of spinsterhood and contentment,’ he writes. ‘They gave him love and wool as an infant, and a lifelong passion for chutney as an adult.’

From an early let-down in Manningham Park, when a goose ran off with his jam sandwich, to job-dissatisfaction in roles from courier - ‘delivering meaningless parcels to meaningless people’ - to recruitment consultant and odd-job man, his experiences are described in detail, funny side-up.

I recruitment, he didn’t relish matching people with jobs. ‘The interviews themselves were an opportunity to find out more about the person behind the bullshit, and Damian had a series of questions designed to draw out the worst in each and every candidate.’

Despite their humble backgrounds, the Carters were quite entrepreneurial. Anne established a company of her own, Carters’ Cardigans of Distinction,’ producing bespoke cardigans for the carsick and elderly, while Thomas set up The Carter Complaint Centre, ‘a home-based moaning service.’

Inspired by his father, the book lays bare Damian’s experiences as son, husband and as a dad himself.

Damian’s eyebrow-raising tales are, by his own admission, embellished - Anne didn’t smoke a pipe, “but at Christmas she always smoked a cigarette in a holder, which is where the idea came from,” he explains.

Place names are given a humorous reworking: Dudley Hill Infant School becomes Didley Hill, Highfield Middle turns into Highfield Muddle, and Tong Comprehensive becomes Tongue Reprehensible.

People’s names have been changed too - which is perhaps for the best - and in their place come the likes of Mrs Spittle, Mr and Mrs Suttball, Miss Hurtle ‘who was forever tearing around the local area buying teabags’, Mr Slurry and Mrs Cakehole.

‘Many of the characters we meet are now thankfully dead, otherwise the legal implications could be catastrophic,’ writes Damian. ‘No-one wants to be sued by their mother, father, brother and sister for alleged inaccuracies and damned right lies.’

The book’s title comes from Damian’s date of birth, July 20, 1965 and a tenuous link to Man’s first steps on the moon. ‘On the day he was allegedly born, Neil ‘Moon Walk’ Armstrong was busy practicing for his cavort on the moon in four years time,' writes Damian.

Thomas told his son that the planned landing was an elaborate celebration for his birthday.

Damian, 56, who now lives in Staffordshire, has for the past 15 years worked as an English teacher in adult education.

A father-of-four ‘parasites’ - ‘the best way to get through parenthood was to think of children as parasites, slowly sucking the life away’ - and grandfather to three, he is now working on a second book, October 3 A Well-Turned Ankle, focusing upon Thomas’s life.

So would his parents enjoy his work? “They would have loved it,” says Damian. “My dad only ever read one book, Treasure Island. He owned three copies and read each in turn.”

“That’s actually true,” he adds.

*July 3 A Goon Landing is published by Vanguard Press and is available from Pegasus Publishers (pegasuspublishers.com), Amazon and other retailers at £12.99