William Ellis Bone, 68, lives on his own in a large Regency house overlooking Richmond Park in Surrey; or, rather he would be, if not for the fact that other people seem to have found ways of intruding into his solitary life. The only two people he'd had to interact with till now were Agnes Joliffe, a widow who has secret desires for William she dare not share, and who has lived in the same building for the past five years; and his life-long friend Arthur James Pullen, whom he tolerates, bearly.
Then one terrible night a young hippy couple literally fall onto his doorstep, and in spite of Mr. Bones best efforts to send them packing, his true gallant nature comes through and he invites the pregnant girl and her husband in out of the harsh winter cold.

Before he knows what he is doing he has issued the unemployed couple with a short term lease - and, a long list of house rules!
And, so begins a subtle game of chess between the old conservative generation in the form of the virgin batchelor Mr. Bone versus the young permissive society in the form of the unmarried mother-to-be Sophie and her often absent free spirited boyfriend, masquerading as her 'Husband', Alex. With the widow bride Mrs. Joliffe in the middle playing Auntie. Words are kept as polite as society dictates, notes are passed back and forth and liberties taken. It all becomes a bit of a mess for poor old Mr. Bone to cope with really. But, little by little the walls of his stagnant household begin to fall just as the Seventies are about to spill into this 1930's time vacuum like a gust of wind through an open window stirring up copious amounts of dust as it makes its way through each room of the old building till it eventually reaches his own retreat, disturbing old papers and revealing secrets.

This is an engaging story of misplaced values and social awkwardness that occurs when people who are from utterly incompatible backgrounds clash.

This book, I should warn you, is filled with some pretty unpleasant and bitter people with only a very few redeeming qualities to boast of; but, that is not to say that they are not likable in some way. Even the titular Mr. Bone himself, probably the saddest waste of a human life of them all, is endearing in his own way. In fact, I believe the only reason the author had to introduced the character of Arthur James Pullen into the mix was as a benchmark by which the other characters could be seen in a slightly more gentile light by means of comparison, I mean to what a scumbag he was!
Even Sophie, the young pregnant girl, is not devoid of selfishness and some level of scheming herself; But, once again, the author has made her boyfriend such a 'crapule' (sorry, but I can't think of a good English word), that you can almost forgive her under such circumstances.
In fact, I think each less than desirable character is given an antagonist so much worse than they are for the very same reasons.
The characters themselves were superbly crafted, and very real, and for a couple of days I was sent back to the Middlesex of 1969.

Even though I have only read the uncorrected advance proof of this book, I enjoyed it immensely and would recommend it as a short read that is worth the time to under take if you are interested in this type of situation drama. ( )