Bill Dehavilland

Harvest at Random Bill Dehavilland

Few Etonians born in the 1930s would have seen themselves retailing flowers from a corner of Debenhams in the 1980s - but the author did, and he lived to tell the tale. If this was a low point in the life of a submariner/RAC student/market gardner/ commodity speculator/ skeet shooter/ powerboat broker and twice-married father and stepfather, this scion of a noble aeronautical family does not pause to complain. In fact his rich and varied career is a triumph of acceptability in the face of reversals and roads closed. Fate always throws him a life line - but there's a hidden ingredient: it's clear that the author is immensely likeable, and so is this vivid and humerous record of his life. As his late wife remarked, 'There's always a good woman looking for a good man.' Here's the proof.