This warm , frank and hilarious account of Margaret Powell’s mother is a vivid account of Victorian and Edwardian working class life, recalled by a woman who never lost her humourous approach to the problems of survival. “It was a recognised thing that the Germans spent all their free time raping. When I said to my father, ‘It would take a very intrepid German that would attempt to get in a clinch with our Mum,’ he was far from amused…”