Double page extracts from the book in today’s Times’ Review, with the picture of Nancy with the Durrell family at the centre. Of course, one hopes that will encourage people to race out and order shedloads of the book in … Continue reading →

The first three copies arrived yesterday. It’s always good to see the finished book, but this time it is infinitely more exciting. Virago have done a stunning job – jacket, typeface, photographs in the text, paper colour – everything is … Continue reading →

When I got home after New Year, I had a card from the daughter of Veronica Tester Dane, telling me she had died some time over the Christmas period. Veronica was one of the two dancers who spent the summer … Continue reading →

I have just finished reading Caroline Moorehead’s new book, A Train In Winter, a devastating, compelling, horrific, wonderful and haunting account of the 230 French women who were shipped by the Nazis to Auschwitz-Birkenau in January 1943. Less than a … Continue reading →

A day of endings. This morning Paddy Leigh Fermor’s memorial service was held at St James’s Church Piccadilly, where I happen to be churchwarden. I never met him, but Penelope was devoted to him, which seemed a good enough combination … Continue reading →