Going Places

`Up on the Roof', where Ben E. King and The Drifters reputedly head `when this old world' starts getting them down, never was going to be an option for householders like myself, possessed of apex roofs designed to fend off Jupiter Pluvius and mortgagee in equal proportion. But, as luck would have it, Billy Hopkins' books (there are now five in the series, including ANYTHING GOES, his latest) have proved to be much more accessible over the years. And unlike the aforementioned rooftop, GOING PLACES in particular is an adventure in time (early 1950s Britain, with newly-weds Billy and Laura setting up home together) as well as space (a whole different world of space in East Africa where, with a couple of kids now in tow, the enterprising couple are seeking further professional opportunity). Escapees (from this old world that's getting them down, that is) will find GOING PLACES is effectively split into two parts in this respect. The first section of the book deals with the joys and vicissitudes of family life in mid-twentieth-century Manchester - as readers have perhaps come to expect after reading Billy Hopkins previous three books in the series - whilst the latter part of the story tells of the young family's exotic life experience in faraway Kenya as the country celebrates incipient nationhood in the aftermath of the Mau Mau emergency. This quite startling locational juxtaposition in the narrative makes for a really lively and refreshing read, where the Kenyan section of GOING PLACES proves to be a world of fresh wonder, particularly when contrasted with the dour austerity of the Land Fit for Heroes the Hopkins' family has left behind. But how wonderful it is too to step aboard Dr Hopkins' Time Machine once again to be whisked away to a more innocent time in our lives, where the bleak midwinter provides us with ration books, utility marks, and queues for coal bricks - but with warmth and comfort too in a land where (to paraphrase Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers) `lovers await their wedding day', and - on a more sombre note - qualifications for, experience in, and ability to do a job of work are still a much more effective guarantee of advancement within one's chosen career than the whimsy and diktat of contemporaneous political correctness. A word of warning though! Once he's whisked you away with him in his Time Machine, Dr Hopkins will insist on operating without anaesthetic. And he's qualified to tackle your tear ducts as well as your "chuckle muscles", whilst just occasionally you'll find he's opted to implant a lump in your throat. No you may NOT have a pre-Med! Unless by that you mean a stopover in Rome!