(The autobiography of the Prime Minister's brother, tellin...)
The autobiography of the Prime Minister's brother, telling of his childhood, his role in the family business and the effect on his own life of John Major's rise to be the country's leader.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0751515868/?tag=2022091-20
1994
Terry Major-Ball was born in 1932, and grew up in Worcester Park, Surrey. His father, Tom Major-Ball (real name Abraham Thomas Ball), was a music hall performer and circus artiste under the name Tom Major, and combined the two surnames when he started a garden ornament business. His mother was Gwen, Tom's second wife, was a dancer.
Unlike his elder sister Pat and younger brother John, Major-Ball failed his 11 plus exam and went to Stoneleigh East Secondary Modern School.
After WWII, Major-Ball did National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Germany.
After being demobilised, Major-Ball unsuccessfully tried to save his ailing father's business, Major's Garden Ornaments, which was finally taken over by a competitor in 1962. The family's reduced circumstances forced them to move into rented rooms in Coldharbour Lane in Brixton. To supplement the family's income, Terry Major-Ball took many menial jobs.
Major-Ball later became a meter installer for South Eastern Electricity Board and a banker. In 1994 he published his autobiography Major Major: Memories of an Older Brother, which was ghost-written by the journalist James Hughes-Onslow. It received good reviews and Major-Ball became a regular at book launches.
It was praised as "one of the great comic books of the year" by John Wells and "exquisitely funny" by Auberon Waugh. In 1995 he appeared on Have I Got News for You and The Mrs Merton Show. In 1993, after noting that he had only been abroad once, to Germany while on National Service, and had never stayed in a hotel.
Terry Major-Ball later went to Christchurch, New Zealand, to open a garden gnome festival. He had columns in The Daily Express, The Daily Mail and The Guardian. He also visited Alaska on a cruise of the Alaska panhandle on behalf of the Daily Express for whom he was a columnist.
During the seven-day trip, he was informed that the Express had dropped his column. Following John Major's departure from office after the 1997 general election, Terry Major-Ball's fame dwindled. In 2003, he moved to Somerset from Croydon.
(The autobiography of the Prime Minister's brother, tellin...)
1994Despite the media attention, he always remained loyal and discreet.
While working at Woolworths in Brixton in 1958, Terry met Shirley Wilson, whom he married in 1960. They have two children: Fiona and Mark.
