Greetings from Bury Park - a review

“Having stumbled in the dark for so long, on that September night I was blinded by the light. Everything significant that I did or achieved in my life in the years that followed had its roots in the emotions I experienced that evening. That night Bruce Springsteen changed my life.” – Sarfraz Manzoor

Bruce Springsteen is a working-class hero who sings for the masses. A patriotic rockstar whose songs represent the western blue-collar worker. What he didn’t know, during his peak in the mid 1980s, was the profound effect his music was having on an adolescent British Pakistani boy in Luton. The young boy began to treat Springsteen’s words as gospel, and with it came the euphoric realisation that his own life mirrored Springsteen’s in many ways.

Greetings from Bury Park is the absorbing personal memoir of Sarfraz Manzoor, the London-based journalist, broadcaster and author. It’s a tribute to the two men who shaped his life – his father, and Springsteen. Each chapter is aptly named after a Springsteen song, describing a different stage of his life. Sarfraz traces his journey from Pakistan to Bury Park - a Luton neighbourhood populated with immigrant Asians - and beyond. Call it fate or a divine coincidence, the title is named after Springsteen’s first album – Greetings from Asbury Park. It was in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where Springsteen’s career took off.

Sarfraz’s confused and enigmatic relationship with his father is the central theme of the book. His dad, Mohammad Manzoor, was part of a flood of first-generation Asian immigrants in England in the 1960s. These men took the bold move of setting up shop in a completely new country, despite the cultural and language barriers they were to face. Mohammad was working in the production line at the Vauxhall car factory when his family joined him in 1974, 11 years after he left Pakistan.

Their early years of poverty and struggle were similar to many other working class families. All four kids had to supplement the family income when they were old enough to find work.

It didn’t quite fit into Mohammad’s plan of searching for a better life abroad. No amount of hard work or struggle fetched him the returns he wished for. It made him grumpy and frustrated. But his bigger battle was not with himself, but with coming to terms with the changing trends in the youth, starting from his own home.

The book captures the cross generational conflict between himself and his children. A fiercely conservative man and a strict Muslim, he expected his kids to fall in line with his principles. Protecting the family name and honour was a touchy topic. His archaic rules didn’t go down well at home. He refused to let his daughters go to university. Marrying outside the community was criminal (Sarfraz went on to marry a Scottish woman). He had rigid rules about money. It pained his children that they could never keep the money they earned. Everything had to be surrendered to a central kitty, from which he would decide how it would be used.

For solace, Sarfraz turned to Springsteen’s music. He was introduced to it through his Sikh friend Amolak. Both came from similar backgrounds and Sarfraz formed an instant bond with his friend and Springsteen at the same time. They hummed songs together, discussed lyrics and dreamt of attending concerts together, which they eventually did. Both adored Springsteen with fervour.

Sarfraz and Springsteen had a lot in common. Both came from working class backgrounds and their respective relationships with their dads was fractious. Springsteen’s dad was an unhappy bus driver who always went into his shell and never encouraged his son’s musical ambitions. He could never accept that his son had a dream. Sarfraz’s dad never understood his son’s fixation with Springsteen and blamed it as a disturbing influence from his white friends at school. He was also not very convinced about Sarfraz’s plans of getting in to documentary film making.

Springsteen sang about life and the people around him and Sarfraz saw a connect. It was his liberation. He was privileged to hold Springsteen’s guitar in a concert while he changed his shirt. During an autograph session, Sarfraz asked Springsteen to do an acoustic version of a song and Springsteen actually did it live on concert. Sarfraz was overcome with emotion and he broke down.

At that moment, Sarfraz’s dreams came true. The same couldn’t be said for his dad, who died before he could fulfil his. It pierced Sarfraz that his dad’s life was taken away at 62, just when he could afford to retire and start enjoying life more. He wanted his children to form successful careers and not end up at the same job at Vauxhall. He died the same week Sarfraz had his first article published. He never saw his son flourish. He never went to Mecca as planned. There was a pall of guilt around Mohammad’s deathbed. Sarfraz realised his father was a hero figure who braved so many challenges for the sake of his family’s betterment. Sarfraz describes his emotions in a touching tribute at the end of the first chapter.

The book is also about Sarfraz’s position as a ‘true Muslim’ and the insecurities of being a Muslim in the era of 9/11 and 07/07. He dares to enter the US to shortly after 9/11 and tells the suspecting immigration official that he’s there to see Springsteen – the plain truth. The officer smiles and stamps the passport.

The book is in essence a childhood memoir, the study of the people around him and of course himself. He has the humility to admit his own failings, letting down his brother Sohail after the father’s untimely death. The solemn episodes aside, the book has its amusing anecdotes as well, like when he first discovered pornography as a teenager and was nearly caught peeking at the Page 3 girls of The Sun. Sarfraz’s lucid style, engaging storytelling and most importantly the way he links his life story to popular culture give the book the edge over other memoirs.

My top five Springsteen tracks:

1. Human Touch
2. I’m on fire
3. Walk like a man
4. One step up
5. 57 channels

Click here to watch Sarfraz's BBC documentary, Luton Actually.