Naturally I bought a copy of the book and read it out to Xiao Xiao when he was old enough to appreciate its humour and young enough not to think it beneath him. He loved it.

But there were lots of typos in the text. Lots and lots and lots.

So I contacted Joan Billany, who told me no copies of the original files existed, so she had keyed in the whole thing, and couldn’t afford a proofreader.

So naturally I offered to do it for her for free.

This means that if you decide to get a copy (and I recommend it if you have an old-fashioned sense of humour and want to learn a little history at the same time)… well, I proofread the copy you’ll get and I don’t want to hear about anything I missed.