A FAMOUS face from Bradford has spoken of his troubled childhood growing up away from his family at a boarding school.

Adrian Edmondson, known for starring in popular shows The Young Ones and Bottom, spoke about his life through the power of music on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. 

It comes as Edmondson's autobiography 'Adapted from Berserker' is set to be published later this month on September 28.

The 66-year-old recalled how he was the only one of his three siblings sent to boarding school in England while the others stayed with mum and dad in Uganda.

Edmondson's father Fred, who went on to become deputy headmaster at the former Drummond Middle School in Manningham, was a geography teacher in the forces at the time. 

The family lived a nomadic lifestyle and Adrian constantly switched schools until he ended up at Pocklington School in North Yorkshire aged 12.

The actor thought his family had died when he had not heard from them in several months following the start of Idi Amin's military dictatorship in the seventies.

"I felt abandoned," the actor told BBC presenter Lauren Laverne. 

"It was a long-term problem with Dad which will never be resolved because he is not here.

"I was the big project which failed and therefore he did not try it on my younger brothers.

"That is my reading into the situation after 60 years."

Edmondson said his name 'Adrian' would often get him in fights with fellow pupils who called him a girl.

On what the boarding school was like, Edmondson said: "There were a lot of beatings, no pastoral care, and absolutely no love for the whole six years.

"I was a different person from that moment on."

At one point, threatened with exclusion, Edmondson ran away from the school to Hull.

"All this sounds grim, I didn't think it would go like this today," he added.

It was his acting career that saved him in the end, meeting best friend and co-writer Rik Mayall at university.

He said: "On the very first day at uni, I was on a bus and there was a guy in front of me with long greasy hair, kept flicking it up, like he was the Fonz. He had a packet of cigs and he tapped both ends on the packet and started blowing smoke rings.

"We both thought Laurel and Hardy were the best of comedy. The other thing we shared was our love of Waiting for Godot, we were the only people who thought it was a funny play."

He breaks down, momentarily, in the interview when recalling his life of friendship and comedy with Mayall, who passed away in 2014.

One of Edmondson's songs, Saturday Gigs by Mott the Hoople, was an ode to memories shared with lifelong friend Mayall.

Edmondson, who has also appeared in Eastenders, Holby City, and won Celebrity Masterchef, selected a range of music across his eight discs.

His chosen songs included Petula Clark's 'Downtown' and disco hit 'Sugar, Sugar' to 'Wide Open Spaces' - a country tune dedicated to his family and wife Jennifer Saunders

Edmondson's chosen luxury item was a tab of acid while, for his book, he would take the playtext of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

"A friend of mine talks about acid, it changed him beneficially and opened the doors to perception," he said.

"Having just written my autobiography, I tried to work out who I am, I realised I'm still incredibly confused. I'd love to understand who I am."