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“... The letter was from Joyce Gill, whom Evelyn had known as Joyce Fagan when he was an undergraduate. Selina Hastings quotes it in her biography without any particular comment, but something in her style and approach shows how much she is aware of its import. For this is a biography of such exceptional perception and sympathy that it quite revived my own ...”

“... of his books had been sold, he was a media celebrity and a very rich man. He had also lived, as Selina Hastings says, ‘much of his life under cover’. He went to great lengths to erase evidence of his private life, systematically destroying his personal papers, asking friends to burn his letters, and instructing his executors to discourage would-be ...”

“... but it seems unlikely he did. Lehmann later said that she was always in love with her father, and Selina Hastings confirms that her parents’ relationship set the psychological pattern for the rest of her life. She was attracted to men who loved her too little, repulsed by anything that smacked of the ‘unfeminine’ in women – it seems to have been ...”

“... example, Spike takes two children on holiday to Winchelsea: One of the places they visited was Hastings Castle. They lived in a rented cottage and were looked after by a kindly Australian woman called Elizabeth Wiltshire. Spike wrote in his diary: ‘She was like a mother to them.’ End of story. No further reference in the book to ...”

“... scrapes. It has been common among Bedford fans to assume that Lisa was English, but according to Selina Hastings in her new biography she wasn’t. She was German, from Hamburg, and at least partly Jewish (‘I never learned how partly, nor through whom. Nobody cared much, or had to – happy days’). Her mother, Bedford once said, ‘instilled into me ...”

“... Wheatley wrote a bold letter of introduction – the wax sealed with her initials – to Selina Hastings, countess of Huntingdon. Huntingdon was the patron of a network of Methodist preachers and chapels whose evangelism ‘bridged classes and reached out to natives and Africans’. She was also a friend of George Whitefield, a charismatic ...”

“... bunch of wild swimmers who used to brave the elements in all seasons now appear on the shingle in Hastings, it is only to make a protest, to hold up angry words painted on their surfboards. Southern Water, the authority responsible, has failed to make serious investment in renewing and repairing inadequate pipes. Streets are regularly deluged. Streams flow ...”