Sonia Tudor was born during the First World War into a world that has long since vanished - of Norland Nannies, butlers and debutantes.
This privileged and happy early life ended abruptly with the separation of her parents. She and her brother found themselves attending an ever-changing series of boarding schools and having no fixed abode.
If she had done what her mother wanted, she would have followed the pattern of becoming a debutante, and then marriage and children. But Sonia had completely different views on the matter. Her mother died when she was sixteen and, on leaving school, she went to live with her father and became an inexperienced Lady of the House.
Boredom eventually led her to get a job in London until the beginning of the Second World War, when she joined the WAAF. She served abroad in Egypt, Italy and Algeria as a Code and Cypher Officer until 1945.
She says, "Like all people, my life has been a mixture of good and bad. I have always had an adventurous spirit and I think I made the most of the chances that came my way. I have enjoyed my life, and I am glad I lived the life I did."
This book was rediscovered twenty years after she wrote it - but it still brings back happy memories for her, tinged with the sadness of loss of friends in the war.