Things you need to know about Joe: He was shy, skinny and Catholic, liked photography, music and girls and was born working-class into the Manchester of the 1960s. He was six when he almost drowned in the sea at Blackpool, eleven when his parents split up and thirteen when he was bullied out of the Grammar School. He was almost fifteen when he discovered masturbation, and sixteen when he went in the Army. (He was still sixteen when he came out again!)

He didn't get a date until he was nineteen, and had to wait until he was twenty to have sex.

Oh, and at seventeen, he vowed to murder his step-dad.

After all, the bastard had just beaten him up and thrown him out of the house ..

It wasn't all bad, though. Joe went on to start a wonderful new life in a flat with his estranged Dad and, when he was eighteen, landed his dream job as a press photographer on a local weekly newspaper. It was whilst he was there he decided he'd write a book. Not a big book. Say, around ninety-nine pages. Page 99, by Joe Bancroft. It had a nice ring to it. But what to write about? Revenge, maybe? Murder ..?

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"This was a great read .."

"A warm & humorous take on life .."

"An amazing read .."

"Well I don’t know where to start. I have just finished reading Page 99, by Joe Bancroft.

From the first page I was hooked .."

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