The author’s father didn’t want you to read this book. It’s hard to understand why

There were several times when reading A Dog’s Life that I felt as if I’d fallen into a time warp. It starts with a quote on the cover from Hugh Massingberd: Holroyd is ‘a brilliant writer blessed with perfect pitch’. Nothing wrong with that, except that Hugh, alas, is no longer in a position to review books, having died seven years ago.

The book itself, a novel closely based on Holroyd’s own family, was written in the late 1950s but never published in the UK after his father took violent exception to the way he’d been portrayed. He also warned that publication could well kill Holroyd’s elderly aunt. Under the circumstances, he decided it might be prudent to withdraw it.

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Alexander Larman

Beware the middle of Lidl

At this distance, it’s hard to see what all the fuss was about. The aunt, Eustace Farquhar, may be an autocratic lush with an increasingly wobbly hold on reality, but there’s no real malice there.