'Nothing I've ever read has flung me so immediately into those streets, that weather, that period. Hayter never forgets that people want stories, that lives are stories.' Margaret Forster
'Hayter could take a tiny chip of life [and] find within it the seeds of a whole existence.' Richard Holmes
'A pioneer . . . Beautifully written vignettes . . . Immaculate scholarship and intense readability.' Jonathan Bate 'Outstanding . . . A small masterpiece.' Anthony Burgess