From the streets of Shanghai to a Welsh valley flooded for a reservoir and onward to the political theatre of Westminster, this is a fascinating family memoir.
Glyn Mathias spent 30 years in TV journalism, many of them in high-profile roles such as Political Editor for both ITN at Westminster and the BBC in Cardiff. He gives a riveting first-hand account of the political intrigues behind many of the headlines of the day, and tells the inside story of the battle to get TV cameras into the House of Commons.
Back in Wales, he highlights the twists and turns of the drive for devolution and the new National Assembly. He also reaches back to describe the tensions in the family's past - his grandfather, an army chaplain who served in China, and his father, a poet and conscientious objector. All of it against the backdrop of the family house abandoned to the rising floodwaters in a Breconshire valley. At times both witty and moving, it is a story which raises an echo from the past.