The nice thing about getting old is that you have so much to look back upon—people, places, events, chapters of history, personal triumphs and failures. I am now in my eightieth year, but I remember my eighteenth year quite clearly. I had been living in Jersey, in the Channel Islands, with relatives, working at odd jobs and trying to write a novel in my spare time. Fed up with the insularity of life in Jersey, I took off for London, found another dull job, and searched for a publisher.