An interesting little book for those of us with ties to the town. The author was born in Buckingham St, in what is now (had to google it) the Bamboo Chinese restaurant! His father ran a grocery store - taking over from the Boughton family, one of whom (Rutland Boughton- more googling) was actually a famous composer! So much has altered in the past hundred years that it can be hard to envisage the long-demolished streets and buildings. Other bits make the longterm inhabitant shout "I remember that!" - the old shops and businesses, the buildings still standing, whose history you never suspected. This isn't quite one of those literary memoirs that tug at heartstrings of every reader- if you don't know Aylesbury, you would't get a tremendous amount from it. Also the author rather overdoes the device of bringing his youthful self into the narrative by frequent rhetorical childish questions: thus a reference to the 'Saracen's Head' pub is followed immediately by ("What was a Saracen and what happened to his head?") And many many more.... However as a totall Aylesburian, I really liked it and will wander down the concrete wasteland of Buckingham St musing on the days when it "rejoiced in a number of lime trees which gave off a strong scent....cattle and sheep bound for market....maidservants, 'the Bonnet box' ....ah, happy days! ( )