OH, WHAT A LOVELY CENTURY

Top ranking bestseller, Roderic Fenwick Owen (1921-2011) was at one time or another a travel writer, biographer, beachcomber, husband to a Polynesian princess, painter, court poet and a Royal Air Force veteran. He was at all times a romantic and never passed up on love, however fleeting an affair it might turn out to be. He died shortly before his 90th birthday and left behind memoirs stretching to a million words for his family, which have been abridged into this book. History, high society, travel and sex all feature at the heart of this enthralling autobiography which is full of drama and is refreshingly honest, both a personal memoir and a marvellous obituary to an ever changing and now lost world. Examples include Nazi Germany in 1939, North Africa and Italy during WWII, the Pentagon during the Cold War Years, and the Middle East just as oil was discovered there. At the heart of his writing adventures lay his search for love, even if just for the night. He fell head over heels for and married a Polynesian princess while beachcombing in Tahiti, but when a dazzling trip in 1950s New York opened his eyes to the fact he was more attracted to men than women, Roderic was forced to continue his quest for his soulmate under threat of danger at a time when police were prosecuting and imprisoning more gay men than ever before, including some of his friends. Roderic survived Eton, Oxford and WWII to become a travel writer and frequently found himself party to crucial historical events. His life features a stellar cast of characters from Eisenhower and Jackson Pollock to Christopher Lee and Sean Connery. Lyrical, witty, gamey and rollicking, stuffed with anecdotes and mesmerising details. 566pp with cast of Repeat characters and Afterword.