Smith of Lambeth

David Jones has lived a rich and varied life, the highlights of which are beautifully presented in this wry and irresistibly intelligent collection. Not many people can saythey’ve had a successful career as a structural engineer, boxed andcompeted in swimming and track-and-field tournaments, lived andworked in Tanganyika and Uganda, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, soldprograms at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, acted and sungprofessionally—and written a book about all of it. Of his entertainment career in particular, he says,“The big reward of performing has been the great people and brilliant musicians I have met over the years. I have had good times, interspersed with disappointments and, sometimes, failure. Failure in performance isusually self-inflicted, mostly due to lack of preparation. . . . I have had some minor success in theater and have been well reviewed. One reviewer said, ‘David Jones is a lusty old goat.’ How can you beat that?” It is precisely this amalgam of sober irreverence that informsthe memorable moments in the author’s life and makes them so readable.