An impecunious naval officer is unexpectedly offered a castle, a village, and a 4,000 acre estate. Hooray! It's like winning the Pools .......or is it? Although the framework of this memoir is Rockingham Catle and its pivotal influence on its owner's 15 years work with the Historic Houses Association, the story covers a much wider field. The first section on the Navy and the subsequent chapters on chairmanship of the National Curriculum History Working Group and the British Library are illuminating to say the least. REVIEWS: "This briskly well-written book gives a good picture of two now vanished worlds: the Royal Navy in the last years of the British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, and the English country estate in the difficult time of the 1970s, before the Thatcherite economic revolution changed everything. The naval section of this book is of great interest, as it is a rare personal memoir of those years, after the Second World War but before the end of East of Suez, not otherwise much written about." Country Life "The book is a fascinating account of Michael Saunders Watson's life in the Navy, his work with the Historic Houses Association and his life at Rockingham." Land dBusiness 36 colour illustrations
