Reading matters

This post is about a fortnight overdue, it is certainly two weeks since I finished Martina Cole's book. It was the first time that I had read anythng by the writer. Somehow the back cover blurbs I read from time to time put me off buying her previous novels, perhaps she seemed to me a shade too noir for my taste.

But The Family was an eye-opener. It is neither a police procedural nor a whodunnit but rather a gripping family saga, thee story of a woman whose life took a certain course when she married into a clan from the traditional South London underworld, the milieu of moody mischief perpetrated by smooth and ruthless villains.

Although the time span of the narrrative runs from the mid-eighties to the present day, after reading it I found myself thinking back to the mid-sixties and the clique I ran with in Chelsea.

And I felt that I wanted to write a post about the fascination that we had in those days for the 'faces', reasonably well represented by the Kray twins, shown at the top in the photo taken by fashion photographer David Bailey.

I must, however, concede defeat. I find it difficult to organize my thoughts sufficiently to come up with a text worth sharing. The best I can do is post an audio clip...