What British novelist and fighter pilot inspired Bali Rai?
Bali Rai Bali Rai was born in Leicester in 1971 and grew up in a multicultural, multi-racial community close to the city centre. As a child he dreamt about three things—playing football for Liverpool F.C., being Bob Marley and becoming a writer. At the age of eleven he read the book that would inspire him to write. It was "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole" by Sue Townsend. Other authors had inspired him to write for fun (Roald Dahl in particular) but it was Sue Townsend who became his true role model.
Coming Up for Air Coming Up for Air is a novel by George Orwell, first published in June 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. It combines premonitions of the impending war with images of an idyllic Thames-side Edwardian era childhood. The novel is pessimistic, with its view that speculative builders, commercialism and capitalism are killing the best of rural England, "everything cemented over", and there are great new external threats.