Harold and Bella, Jammy and Me

A welcome reissue of this collection of stories which centre on the lives of four friends in a small northern town just before the outbreak of the Second World War and just before the narrator wins a scholarship to grammar school. The stories are sharply detailed, warm and often funny, with the discoveries of childhood and relationships embedded in adventures like the search of the caves where King Arthur and his knights might still sleep or in just lis-tening to blind Ollie tell of the landscapes of the old salt workings. Excellent for reading aloud.