Employing both the language and lucidity of the young boy that he evokes, the actor turned author, Dirk Bogarde, presents us with a charming recollection of his childhood. From 1927 to 1934 he lived in a remote cottage in the Sussex Downs with his sister Elizabeth and their strict but loving nanny, Lally. For the children it was an idyllic time of joy and adventure: of gleaning at the end of summer, of oil lamps and wells, of harvests and harvest mice in the Great Meadow.

With great sensitivity and poignancy, this memoir captures the sounds and scents, the love and gentleness that surrounded the young boy as the outside world prepared to go to war.

First published in 1992, this is one of Bogarde's latter memoirs.