This paperback has been taken on numerous trips as my ’emergency book,’ in case all other sources of reading material fail me. I recently decided to retire it from that role and actually read it.

Unfortunately, this really wasn’t my kind of thing. It’s a Sunday night TV drama of a book about a group of Brixton residents mounting a campaign to save a lido that the Council wants to sell off. It’s black and white, residents good / developers bad sort of stuff. It’s a warm mug of cocoa of a book, with no unsettling surprises and no challenges to any preconceptions.

To me, I’m afraid, it was very dull. But others have found it uplifting and heartwarming, so each to their own.