This engaging novel written when war clouds were on the horizon is now published for the first time. The life of its hero George Bowling is a kind of cavalcade of England between 1893 when he was born ("it was a good world to live in") and 1938 when the main action occurs.
George Bowling feels compelled to make a try at coming up for air. "The idea really came to me the day I got my new false teeth" is his opening sentence. With seventeen pounds he was won at a race he steals a visit to Lower Binfield the village of his birth. This story of Bowling's journey into his own and his country's past is told with humour warmth and a nostalgia which will surprise and delight George Orwell's many readers.