Monkeys, Bears and Gutta Percha

by Colin Maclean

Published 14 November 2000
In this volume, Colin MacLean picks up and develops the family story as told by his mother, Isabella G. MacLean, in the remarkable collection of her letters, "Your Father and I". He looks back across a varied career in journalism and publishing, highlighting many of the distinctive features in school and university education, in conditions of health and hygiene, in language, and in the social and religious attitudes of his early years. His personal account traces the span of one family's contacts with two world wars and presents the moving and often painful story of the impact of his sister Isabel of her brief and unexpected war service at Bletchley Park, where the Ultra Secret was being unravelled.