A 1950s Childhood tells the autobiographical story of life for a boy growing up in England in the austerity period: food rationing, bomb damage, but also fun, laughs and larks in a picturesque seaside town. Just after the war, the author's parents took him and his three siblings from bomb-shattered London and moved into a dilapidated house on Trinity Road, near Weymouth Harbour, to run a guesthouse. The author recounts stories of the renovation of this big house (St Pierre, or 'Som Pee Air' as it was affectionately known), of the guests, the ghosts, the paddle steamers, and many other tales. The author deftly paints a larger picture of a bygone era around the recollections of his own childhood. Sometimes funny, sometimes touching, the memories contained within the pages of this book are always captivating.