This book is a series of vignettes about the life and times of a child growing up in East Sussex in the years after the Second World War.

It covers the transition from war to peace and the child’s transition from schoolgirl to young adult. At first there is austerity, boarding-school and the social changes of the postwar Labour government, and then a growing sense of freedom as wartime restrictions begin to be relaxed, goods and services become more available and opportunities for travel in Western Europe open up.

The very personal story culminates with the girl’s job as secretary to an eccentric former diplomat who was one of the key figures in the Battle of the River Plate in 1939, and her experiences working with him and his family in London, Rome and South America.