'I would be most unhappy to think that any part of this memoir should be cut on grounds of 'decency', for those bits are essential...'

For fear of growing up like his stiff upper-lipped, disapproving Uncle Dick, Roderic Fenwick Owen (1921-2011) survived Eton, Oxford and World War II to become a travel writer, experiencing the varied wonders of the 20th Century's people and places in that guise. At the heart of his adventures - which took him from the Arctic to Australia, America to Russia, and a good portion of the places in between - lay his search for love, even if just for the night. He fell madly in love with, and married, a Polynesian princess whilst beachcombing in Tahiti; but when a dazzling trip to 1950s New York opened his eyes to the fact he was more attracted to men than women, he was forced to continue his quest for his soulmate under threat of danger, at a time when the police were prosecuting and imprisoning more gay men than ever before, including some of his friends.

Featuring a stellar cast of celebrities (Eisenhower, Jackson Pollock, Christopher Lee and Sean Connery to name a few), plus ordinary people whose extraordinary stories have lain dormant until now, OH, WHAT A LOVELY CENTURY follows Roddy as he careered (accidentally) through some of the biggest moments of 20th Century history, including experiencing Nazi Germany first-hand in 1939 (he arrived home days before war broke out); becoming court poet to the ruler of Abu Dhabi when the oil that would transform the region was discovered; and being part of significant conversations in the Pentagon during the Cold War.

Lyrical, witty and enthrallingly honest about sex and high society, this book is both a highly personal memoir and a marvellous obituary of an ever-changing and now lost world - that was frequently the best of times, and sometimes the worst.

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Account dedicated to Print on Demand titles. Brook Bookstore offers a wide selection of books with a continuously updated catalog and fast shipments all over the world. We hold distribution rights with all of the publishers we promote and are in continuous search of new interesting titles to propose to our customers. We are part of Brandon Group SRL (an Italian company) and all of the orders are shipped from Europe. Depending on availability orders will be picked from our different warehouses. CONTACT US If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us sending a message to our store. We have a well prepared customer service team who will be happy to assist you. Our working hours are from Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 18:30 (CET, UTC +1) so messages received during the weekends might be responded with a slight delay but we guarantee you will get back to you as soon as possible. RETURNS If you want to return your order, please submit your request through Abebooks platform. Returns requests are managed case by case by our team and always in line with Abebooks policies: AbeBooks? Return Policy guarantees that you can return any book for a refund within 30 days, when the return is due to an error on the bookseller?s part. When the motive of the return is not due to an error of the seller it is up to Brook Bookstore to accept the return or else after studying the case. CANCELLATION You can send a cancellation request to our customer service team while the package has not yet been shipped. After that we cannot ensure we can retrieve the parcel but we suggest you to get in touch with us in order to verify the case. INVOICE You can request the invoice to be issued together with the shipment of the order or, at the latest, in the same month of the shipment.

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Brandon Group S.R.L.
Via Vannella Gaetani 27, Brandon Group, Napoli, NA, 80121, Italy

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Account dedicated to Print on Demand titles.

CANCELLATION
You can send a cancellation request from the order page while the package has not yet been shipped. After that we cannot ensure we can retrieve the parcel but we suggest you to get in touch with us in order to verify the case.

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You can request the invoice to be issued together with the shipment of the order or, at the latest, in the same month of the shipment.

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