Ian Gates

An absorbing, and brilliantly written, account of Simpson's early years which evokes the horrors of the Blitz in London during his mother's pregnancy, and goes right through to the post war Austerity era and the optimistic ethos of the 1950s. There's a great deal about his rather eccentric family, and the odd relationship between his parents, but that's interspersed with lots of marvellous historical details about Britain during that period.