"It was in the church that I got to love shadows and dark corners, musty cupboards and creaking floorboards. I was a p…"

"I didn't care as an ex-ballet dancer wrote and told me she had seen the production and fallen in love with my legs. S…"

""Stay calm, sir," I cried. "Don't excite yourself, it could mean death." He took me at my word and instantly fell ine…"

"Poverty can curdle the libido and corrode civilized thoughts. One's sense of humour vanishes, to be replaced by a cur…"

"Once a man next to me found the handle of a radiator in his mashed potato; he said nothing, merely moving it to the s…"

"She smiled at me, arsenically."

"Being poor is a little like having an earache over a Bank Holiday. All you can think about is the pain and how long i…"

"Tom Fleming, the eldest, was said to look like King George V, and indeed, was often mistaken for His Majesty when in …"

"Of course, for a lot of people, death was a welcome change. Grinding poverty takes the edge off most things, includin…"

"Who was it that designed brown envelopes? I feel sure that he hated people whoever he was. I wonder where he's buried?"