"This tiny, white-washed Infants’ room was a brief but cosy anarchy. In that short time allowed us we played and wept,…"

"She [Lee’s mother] was muddled and mischievous as a chimney-jackdaw, she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy …"

"They [Lee’s uncles] were the horsemen and brawlers of another age, and their lives spoke its long farewell. Spoke too…"

"Our village was clearly no pagan paradise, neither were we conscious of showing tolerance. It was just the way of it.…"

"….and Rosie, having baptized me with her cidrous kisses, married a soldier and I lost her for ever."

"The last days of my childhood were also the last days of the village. I belonged to that generation which saw, by cha…"

"It was then I began to on my bed and stare out at the nibbling squirrels, and to make up poems from intense abstracti…"

"The stooping figure of my mother, waist-deep in the grass and caught there like a piece of sheep’s wool, was the last…"

"I was propelled, of course, by the traditional forces that had sent many generations along this road - by the small t…"

"The rabble closed in; I was encircled; grit flew in my face like shrapnel. Tall girls with frizzled hair, and huge bo…"