When uppish airline captain Geoff Mayer fi nds his ancestors were workhouse paupers it's a terrible shock. He has always been comfortably-off - his father owned a chain of grocery stores, and his grandfather was a doctor. So he expects his earlier forebears to have been well-heeled... perhaps, even, nobility. When they turn out to be old-style working class, it's anathema to Hanna, Geoff's snobbish wife. It is the mid-80s, and both are staunch supporters of Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Hanna sees Geoff's embarrassing family tree as a threat to her status. But infuriatingly, as he traces his ancestors he even starts to sympathise with them. Worse, as Geoff works back to the 1700s, he discovers his female forebears working London's streets as prostitutes He fi nds little other information except records of births, marriages and deaths. Geoff doesn't even know the shocking truth of what happened to his own mother. But for the reader, the truth is revealed as the story goes "live" in each generation...and all have their own dramatic story. Secretly Hanna has had a string of lovers. When she walks out on their 23 year marriage and tells their son that Geoff is not his father, his cosy world is shattered. This is a story that combines life in the turbulent and divisive "Thatcher" 1980s with the realities behind England's "good old days" - highlighting some interesting parallels with modern times.