If wishes were horses beggars would ride. (Trad.) When Lara was twelve & her younger brother Alfie eight their father died in a helicopter crash. A prominent plastic surgeon & Irishman he had honed his skills on the bomb victims of the Troubles. But the family grew up used to him being absent: he only came to London for two weekends a month to work at the Harley Street Clinic where he met their mother years before & they only once went on a family holiday together to Spain where their mother cried & their father lost his temper & left early. Because home for their father wasnt Earls Court: it was Belfast where he led his other life... Narrated by Lara nearing forty & nursing her dying mother All the Beggars Riding" is the heartbreaking portrait of a woman confronting her past."