''They are memorials to times and countries whose best is probably past and gone . . . I was lucky to have known them when I did, before darkness began to fall from the air.''When Laurie Lee first left his country village aged nineteen, he discovered a delight in the outside world that remained undiminished throughout his writing life. This enchanting collection of his ''first loves and obsessions'' brings together pieces including recollections of his Gloucestershire childhood celebrated in Cider With Rosie; reflections on life, love and death, such as a moving report from the tragic Welsh village of Aberfan; and evocative travel writings on Tuscany, Mexico and the West Indies, amongst others, before they were transformed by mass tourism. Together they capture a world that is lost forever.''One of Britain''s finest writers'' Daily Mail''There''s a formidable, instant charm in the writing that genuinely makes it difficult to put the book down'' New Statesman