The modern summer holiday was born on the Cote d'Azur, in the 1930s, more precisely at Juan les Pins. This is where sunbathing and waterskiing were invented, where beach, sea and sun came together to create the archetypal Mediterranean vacation.
To grow up as an English girl - at home in two cultures - in the centre of this beautiful and extraordinary place, at such a dramatic time, made for a fascinating and unusual childhood.
Shattered suddenly by evacuation in 1940 - on the last boat to England - to work as a nurse in the London Hospital in Whitechapel during the war. Then a return to France, and the British Embassy in Paris, with all the privations, challenges and opportunities of the post-war years.
This autobiography takes us from 1928 to 1950, from the age of six to the age of 28. At times a gentle description of a vanished way of life, at others a chronicle of a rich family life, with some moments of intense drama, and others of lyrical description.