A Bed of Roses

When Guy Harrowby plays a particularly mean trick on the gentle Louise, she feels that the four-year-old bond between them is well and truly broken. She goes to Spain with two friends for a holiday and finds Guy on the same ship, excercising all his actor's charm upon the impressionable Molly, but Louise accepts it as part of the process of curing herself of him. Also on board is the young architect, Michael Clary, to whom Louise becomes engaged. The cure should now be complete; yet, Guy continues to pursue her: for all his charm, he is an armour-plated egotist, equipped with an effrontery which neither Louise's friends nor Molly's outraged parents can cope with. As tension mounts, the inevitable explosion comes - a quick, sudden scene shattering in its violence. The background is as brilliantly-alive as the characters: the bull-fight, the Desfila, seguidilla and flamenco, the rain and grit and everyday life of Spain, its colour, harshness, dignity, disquiet, are all woven into the moods and actions of the travellers.

William Sansom (1912-1976) was a leading writer of his day, both for fiction and non-fiction. In 1946 and 1947 he was awarded two literary prizes by the Society of Authors, and in 1951 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. During the Second World War he became a full-time London firefighter, serving throughout the Blitz. His experiences during this time inspired much of his writing, including "The Blitz" and many of the short stories in his celebrated collection "Fireman Flower. "He also appeared as the fireman who plays the piano in Humphrey Jennings's famous film about the Blitz, "Fires Were Started."