Anyone reading this book will ask, ‘Is it true, did it happen?’
Yes, it is true; yes, it did really happen. Not in the neat, ordered way in which I hope to have presented it – but it all happened at some time or another, and more.
I dedicate the book to Margaret and John Gervis who forced me, in the best possible way, to write it; to all the men who helped me get through my small part of the period it portrays – though many of them are now dead – and, above all, to Celia, who has been brave enough to risk living with me ever since.
A.W.