When I asked a group of girls who had been at Hatherop Castle in the 1960s whether the school had had a lab in those days they gave me a blank look &A laboratory?& I expanded hoping to jog their memories & Oh that kind of lab!& one of them said &I thought you meant a Labrador&& The cruel teachers The pashes on other girls The gossip The giggles The awful food The homesickness The friendships made for life The shivering cold Games of lacrosse & cricket& The girls& boarding school! What a ripe theme for the most observant verbal artist in our midst today
- the absurdly undersung Ysenda Maxtone Graham who has the beadiness & nosiness of the best investigative reporter the wit of Jane Austen & a take on life which is like no one else&s This book has been my constant companion ever since it appeared&A N Wilson Evening Standard&A wonderful book& Craig Brown Mail on Sunday