"[Whitfield] arrived in Chipping Campden in 1924 with a car and his cats and his books, determined to make his way as a writer, although obliged to work in the family manufacturing business in Birmingham. He concentrated first on poetry, then on short novels and essays ... He kept a diary from the time of his arrival up to the early years of the Second World War, when he married, having built for himself his ideal bachelor home in Chipping Campden, designed by the architect Norman Jewson. The diaries ... give a fascinating picture of the pre-war life of a ... bachelor with a deep interest in literature and the countryside. He got to know everybody of interest in the area, from farm labourers to fox-hunting gentry, artists, craftsmen, tradesmen and businessmen to members of the Home Guard. These encounters as well as every-day life in a Cotswold town are recorded with a wry humour and reflect the writer's unusual maturity and the breadth of his reading. They give a vivid picture of life in pre-war England - a world that is now remembered by few - and record the approach of war, wartime life in Chipping Campden, with the Home Guard, and in the Blitz in Birmingham and London."--Back cover.