Here, he tells us the story of his own upbringing in the 1940s and 50s--a personal tale of hardship and loss, friendships, loves and youthful adventures. Personal it may be, but it's an account of a life that manages never to be self-centred or isolated from the rest of the world.

A surprising number of public figures contribute cameos and walk-ons--Laurel and Hardy, Richard Todd, even the public executioner--and Derek surrounds his own experience with all the minutiae of life we all recognise from those special times and places.

The author is an extraordinary man, who has gone on to lead an extraordinary life but, above all, it is the ordinariness of his upbringing in that era of order, certainty and simple pleasure that is at the heart of our latter day nostalgia and sense of loss that he brings back to life in this delightful memoir.