Brian Thompson

Sequel to ‘Keeping Mum’ (7726). After a chaotic childhood, Brian Thompson spends his National Service in Kenya under a platoon sergeant, Idi Amin. On reading English at Cambridge he meets a ‘Clever Girl’ who recognises his need to escape the kind of unhappy life his parents have made for themselves.

The author describes his childhood in Cambridge and London in the 1940s, where his mother danced the nights away with the Yanks and his father, who was always discouraging to his son, was mostly absent.