For us, High Tea was a Highly Mannered ritual to be performed for the purposes of demonstrating one’s capacity to set out the cutlery in the right order and on this one particular occasion we were being visited by some rather puffed up relatives who, at their own home, had a front room into which riff raff like us were never invited, but from whom my parents hoped to cop the odd bob or two when they passed on. When the time came we only got a pair of curtains from the rellies and I buried a cat in one of them.

Excerpt from Not Being First Fish. Find on Amazon UK & Amazon US.