Pauline Forrest's account of a working-class childhood in Bath in the 1920s and 1930s is a vivid evocation of a city changed almost beyond recognition - a city of tramcars, lodging houses, street vendors, midwinter dips in the flooded river and charabanc trips to the seaside. It was a time of 'making do', of getting by as best you could, when small pleasures counted for a lot. But, although firmly rooted in a particular time and place, her story reminds us, above all, of what it is to be a child, with all the hopes and dreams, all the adventures and tribulations (and occasional naughtiness) that entails. By turns funny, uplifting and sad, it is a classic account of childhood between the wars.