This title
Includes:: unexpected tales from the master of short fiction. The Shielding of Mrs Forbes"
- Graham Forbes is a disappointment to his mother who thinks that if he must have a wife he should have done better. & her own husband would be better if she were mourning him than living with him. But this is Alan Bennett so no matter the importance of keeping up appearances what is happening in the bedroom (and in lots of other places too) is altogether more startling perhaps shocking & ultimately much more honest to peoples predilections. " The Greening of Mrs Donaldson"
- Mrs Donaldson is a conventional middle-class woman beached on the shores of widowhood after a marriage that had been much like many others: happy to begin with then satisfactory & finally dull. But when she decides to take in two lodgers (a young broke couple) passions that she never knew existed are aroused & her mundane life becomes much more stimulating..."