Beginning in the second half of 1947, during a period of rationing, and ending on the eve of the new Elizabethan age, this is a personal diary of life in a tenement block off Victoria Street, London, capturing the mood, tempo, emotion and texture of its grim day-to-day reality. It is woven around snatches of the vital minutiae of life at the time and provides glimpses of some of the characters who gave it colour - Florrie Banks, who reads tea-leaves, Cornelius Wilby, who once dined with Noel Coward and hoards sweets for local children, Willoughby Cleaver, a shell-shock victim rumoured to have been a foreign correspondent and now exploring local dustbins for food and the occasional jackpot. Illustrated in colour with the author's original pictures, this book seeks to preserve and bring to life a tiny corner of central London's past.