I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

This is the famous first line of a twentieth century classic. When I had my bookshop many of my customers would pick up this book, tell me it was one of their favourite novels and would buy it for a friend. 

I have always meant to read it and knowing I was going to have five hours travelling on trains and tubes I decided to download it for the journey. Well, what a delight. In a way I wish I had read it years ago as by now I could have re-read it several times.

It is a coming of age story and also a study of an eccentric British family in the 1930's. The story is told through the journal of Cassandra, a would be novelist who is practising her story-telling skills by detailing the exploits of her relatives. The family live in a castle which has been leased for 40 years. The lease was taken out at a period of relative affluence and now they have fallen on hard times. But for all their difficulty in making ends meet they are a very happy group of people. Then their landlord dies and the American family who has inherited arrives to visit England and their properties. So, the lives of the Mortmain family change in many different ways. Superb storytelling, believable and likeable characters, romance and unrequited love. It was hard to put it down and I am very glad circumstances led to me eventually reading “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith.