In 1938 Allan Ahlberg was picked up in London by his new adoptive mother and taken back to Oldbury in the Black Country. Now one of the most successful children's book writers in the world, here Allan writes of an oddly enchanted childhood lived out in an industrial town; of a tough and fiercely protective mother; of fearsome bacon slicers; of 'fugitive memories, the ones that shimmer on the edges of things: trapdoors in the grass, Dad's dancing overalls'. Of 'two mothers, two fathers and me like a parcel or a baton (or a hot potato!) passed between them'. Using a mix of prose and poetry, supported by new drawings by his daughter Jessica and old photographs, THE BUCKET brings to life the childhood that inspired Allan's classic picture books.