A Decade After the Dormitory

In this delightful memoir the author takes the reader back on a nostalgic and humorous journey to the late 1970s and early 1980s. Newly married to a "country girl", he plies his trade with Lloyds Bank, very briefly on Merseyside before a welcome transfer to the historic city of York. We re-live the happenings of a half-century ago whilst the author tells of his on-going love-hate relationship, both with York and with his chosen banking profession, where the reader will find the tongue-in-cheek character descriptions enchanting. We are also treated to amusing accounts of visits to the Yorkshire Dales - Dentdale, Grassington, Grisedale - plus an All Creatures Great and Small celebrity cricket match and a visit to an embryonic North York Moors Railway. The author also gives family holidays on the P&O's flagship SS Canberra an entertaining, scurrilous slant. And all the time, we are presented with a playful, and at times risqué, rather mischievous, look at married life intertwined with a playful narrative of friends and neighbours. The reader is treated to a story told in a fireside, conversational style, genuinely open and honest. The continuing vein of humour at times clashes with the author's melancholy, always lurking just below the surface, as, for example, when he links the passage of time to the River Ouse: '...seemingly forever the unchanging Ouse remains.' This story provides a most fitting conclusion to the author's previous two narratives linked to growing up abroad, boarding school and pre-married life in the Wenning Valley.