A LITTLE OF WHAT YOU FANCY

'Teetotal!' Ma said. 'It's a libel. He'll never live it down. What's he going to say when anybody asks him to have one?' 'You'll have to strap him down... You'll have to put the handcuffs on.' After a mild heart attack caused by rather too much of what you fancy, Pop Larkin finds himself off the booze, off the good food, and off the good life generally much to his own and everyone else's horror and upset. Meanwhile Ma tries to find ways around 'doctor's orders', young Primrose is finding her own way round a rather flustered if not to say flushed Mr Candy, and high mid-summer pomps of tree and flower are evoked with gusto. 188pp, Penguin paperback.