JOY AND SORROW – a story of Bath, the third novel in The Westcott Chronicles of Bath, commences in June 1972 – the time of that unforgettable photograph of the naked young girl burnt by napalm fleeing down a road in Vietnam.

The tranquillity of the Lundy family is shattered by a vicious attack on Ruth, now aged five, and gravely disfigured in hospital.

Homelessness, and the Council’s secret and hostile agenda to prevent squatting in Chatham Row, leads to the disused Charmy Down Royal Air Force base north of the city.

The threat to Ian Lundy’s property empire becomes critical when the Government freezes every rent payable in the United Kingdom in November 1972.

The years roll on, and the characters encounter:

…the arrival in the City of a survivor from the war time Polish ghetto and Auschwitz

concentration camp

…a chance meeting at the opening night of the smash musical ‘Jesus Christ

Superstar’

…Ted Heath’s confrontation with the local miners reducing the nation to a three-day

working week

…The I.R.A. bombing of The Corridor in Bath

…Margaret Thatcher becoming the leader of the Conservative Party.

…A deadly meningitis outbreak which closes the Roman Baths for decades.

…The scandal of ‘The Sack of Bath’ hits the national press

… The Brixton race riots.

And much much more…