After Victor Dilworth drives by chance through the village where he was born in the 1920s, he starts to recall his earliest memories of life on the family farm, Hinstock Grange. In his retirement, as he concentrates on these recollections, they become so real that it feels as though he has been reborn into those times and is actually reliving his experiences.

Describing long-gone sights, sounds, smells and emotions, he employs a turn of phrase so evocative and exact that reading this book is like watching a vivid video being played in the mind, 'filmed' through the eyes of a toddler and small boy. The scenes are set in his native Shropshire and also Cheshire, where he visits the farm and watermill at Alvanly where his father was brought up. The family makes Cheshire cheese and the annual national cheese championships at Nantwich Show are a focus for their ambitions.

The youngest of a family of five children, Victor finds that his busy and hard-working parents have little time for him until he can do some useful work. Affection comes from his big sister, his grandfather and his beloved dog, Rover. Always anxious to learn, he watches the family milking cows and tending the many animals. He sees lambs being born and under threat of a whack from the cow strap he refrains from touching the baby chicks as they emerge from their shells in the incubator. He helps the farm waggoner to oil the horse-drawn mowing machine and accompanies his father to feed the sheep, on a float pulled by Dolly the pony. He learns about the cycle of life and death on the farm and comes to realise "that all creatures on earth are dependent on each other, just like the strands of a spider's web suspended on a hedgerow in the autumn."

He sets off to school just before his fourth birthday, full of trepidation about the unknown outside world...

There was always a good warm feather bed and wholesome food - boiled potatoes and carrots, roast or boiled beef followed by farmhouse rice pudding, not forgetting home-made apple pies and the like. What we all enjoyed were Mother's fruit cake and crusty pork pies. Most of the food we had was produced on the farm.

When I finished my schooling I went to work as an agricultural engineer; perhaps I was tired of farming. As the farm was only a hundred acres, my father said it would be better if I went and got my own living, for there were plenty of hands at home.

So why not share my days of happiness and heartbreak with me?

"absolutely charming reading" - Anna Murby, BBC Radio Northampton. Victor had an interview about his childhood and the book on her programme on January 9th, 2004. The interview lasted nearly 20 minutes.

"Please send me a copy of 'Nellie's Story' and 'Diesel Taff'. If they are half as good as 'Happy Days and Heartbreak Days' they will be good" - Mrs D R, Hunstanton 3426