‘This time next year, we’ll be millionaires’

So said Sir David’s iconic Only Fools character, Derek Trotter. But such a dream was almost unimaginable for David growing up in a working-class family in North Finchley in the rubble of the Blitz.

Throughout his remarkable career, David’s north star for navigating life’s challenges has been his positive outlook and his resilience.

From a trainee electrician to national treasure, David’s bumpy journey to success has overcome obstacle after obstacle.

Candidly revealing the ups, the downs, and the roundabout turns, David’s latest volume of memoirs, This Time Next Year, is an uplifting, entertaining, and inspirational book offering an essential and unvarnished primer to leading a good life.

Told with his characteristic warmth and humour, David reveals the hard-won wisdom of a life doggedly led getting through one day, looking to the next, and always chasing what’s new on the horizon.

“Like sitting down by the fire with [Sir David] and hearing your stories … Full of surprises” Lorraine Kelly

Think of this memoir as a Christmas special in book form, from someone who has been involved in a few of those and understands a bit about the concept. But a Christmas special very much like Only Fools and Horses, in the sense that the stories will be always heading outwards, ranging far and wide and well beyond the traditional festive gags involving giblets left in turkeys.

As I sift through various festive-related episodes in my career, loosening the ribbons, parting the wrapping paper, I’ll be doing my best to reach any relevant conclusions about life, work and the meaning of it all that I can usefully pass on to you – baubles of wisdom if you like. Or certainly baubles. You’ll learn why I have the perfect face to play Scrooge. And if you’re lucky I’ll also share what it’s like to fly in a helicopter with my old mucker Tom Cruise. Merry Christmas, you plonkers.

The Sunday Times Bestseller

‘Yeah, and a partridge up your pear tree, an’ all.’
Derek Trotter
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‘What is it about me and Christmas?

Amazingly, there are eighteen ‘Only Fools and Horses’ Christmas specials. It is at Christmas that Raquel moves in with Del, that Peckham Spring mineral water is first marketed, that the world’s least likely Batman and Robin duo emerge on a foggy street.

Think of this memoir, then, as a Christmas special in book form, from someone who has been involved in a few of those and understands a bit about the concept. But a Christmas special very much like Only Fools and Horses, in the sense that the stories will be always heading outwards, ranging far and wide and well beyond the traditional festive gags involving giblets left in turkeys.

As I sift through various festive-related episodes in my career, loosening the ribbons, parting the wrapping paper, I’ll be doing my best to reach any relevant conclusions about life, work and the meaning of it all that I can usefully pass on to you – baubles of wisdom if you like. Or certainly baubles. You’ll learn why I have the perfect face to play Scrooge. And if you’re lucky I’ll also share what it’s like to fly in the helicopter of my old mucker Tom Cruise. Merry Christmas, you plonkers.’

‘During my life and career I have been given all sorts of advice and learned huge amounts from some great and enormously talented people. I’ve been blessed to play characters such as Derek Trotter, Granville, Pop Larkin and Frost, who have changed my life in all sorts of ways, and taught me lessons that go far beyond the television set. And I’ve worked a few things out for myself as well, about friendship, ambition, rejection, success, failure, adversity and fortune.

With any luck, some of these thoughts and observations will chime with episodes and challenges you have faced, or are facing, in your own life. And if they don’t. . . well, hopefully, at the very least you’ll get to have a good old laugh at my expense.

So lean back, pour yourself a glass, and try not to fall through the bar flap . . .’
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‘An absolute delight . . . a romp with so much detail. Offers wisdom in difficult times . . . like being invited into his living room’ BBC BREAKFAST

‘It’s beautifully written . . . so conversational and chatty . . . it’s so lovely and warm’ CHRIS MOYLES