Ronan Tynan: Halfway Home

Reviewed by MARGIE THOMSON


He's a charmer, all right, this extraordinary man who was born with such deformed legs that at age 20 he made the decision to have them amputated.

He went on to become a multiple gold medal winner at the Paralympic Games (18, and 14 world records), was the first disabled person to be admitted to the UK National College of Physical Education, later became a medical doctor - but is most famous as one of The Three Irish Tenors.

His good humour and generosity of spirit rings through the pages of his memoir like a tenor letting rip at Madison Square Gardens - and yes, he's done that, too.

"Had I not had the cross to bear that I did, and had I not made my own sort of pilgrimage in bearing it, who can say whether I'd ever have been rewarded with all I've been given?" he asks.

And later: "If I couldn't change the scene, I could change the way I acted in it."

This very readable book is released just in time for the New Zealand tour by The Three Irish Tenors, who will be in Auckland on April 5 and 6, at the Bruce Mason Centre.

(Bantam, $37.95)