The Twinkling of an Eye or My Life as an Englishman Little Brown (1998) There comes a time in every young man's life when he finds he is not so young any more. It's when you write your autobiography. Few autobiographers are shown in the nude, as I am, together with other members of Royal Signals 'S' Relief. We are in the Mu River in Burma in 1944; behind us is a semi-sunken railway engine. And inside this large volume is the story of my life, here, there, everywhere, told as honestly as I was able. I was living in Oxford, in a house where my second wife was about to die

Photograph: PR