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Author's brother publishes biography
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| Dave Sharp |
Best-selling novelist Ian McEwan's long lost brother, Oxfordshire brickie Dave Sharp, is finally having his book published.
His biography Complete Surrender tells how Dave, who lives in south Oxfordshire, was handed over aged one at Reading railway station to his foster parents during the war and only recently discovered he was related to the Atonement author.
The book has already been serialised and comes out in two weeks time, but thousands of copies have already been ordered.
Mr Sharp, 65, said: "It's been an emotional roller-coaster ride and there have been a few tears along the way, but I do feel now I have found closure on these extraordinary episodes in my life.
"It's been a good healing process."
Complete Surrender tells how Dave was adopted after his mother became pregnant during a wartime affair.
It was arranged following an advert in the personal column of a newspaper.
The advert simply read: "Wanted, home for baby boy, age one month: Complete surrender.
The infant was given to Rose Sharp and Mr Sharp grew up in south Oxfordshire, where he still lives, unaware he was adopted until he was 14.
The matter remained closed until his adoptive mother died, but all his father Percy would say was they had got him out of a newspaper.
So Dave wrote to the Salvation Army's Family Tracing Service.
A month later, he was told his half-brothers and half-sister had been found.
When contacted, they had no knowledge of another brother but bit by bit, the wartime events became clear.
While her husband was away at war, Rose Wort had an affair with a fellow army officer named David McEwan, resulting in the birth of Stuart, whose name was changed by the Sharps to David.
But when news came of her husband returning on leave, Rose put a rushed advert in the Reading Mercury and gave her son away to the Sharps.
When her husband was killed in the Normandy landings, she was able to marry David McEwan and, six years after Dave's birth, the couple had Ian.
Ian is now a worldwide literary phenomenon, but Mr Sharp was unaware his brother was famous until he met him. He said: "I had never heard of him."
But it was Ian who suggested that Dave write the book.
Mr Sharp said: "He said it was such a great story I should write it down.
"He was the catalyst and only then did it become a serious project.
"But once it was written I couldn't find a publisher so I phoned the Oxford Mail thinking that if I got a few column inches I might find a publisher and lo and behold that's what happened.
"The story went global and John Blake, my publishers, found me through the article in the paper.
"And although it's tremendous to have Ian for a brother I think it's a really good story regardless.
"I just hope people can relate to it, especially my generation because there's a lot of people out there with skeletons in their cupboards who will empathise with me. As for me, I am definitely hoping to be a one-hit wonder - and then disappear back into oblivion."
7:36am Friday 4th July 2008
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