Sir Edward and Lady Elizabeth Feathers are devoted servants of Her Majesty's cause in the colony of Hong Kong from the time of the end of WWII to sometime before the handover back to the Chinese - in other words a very long time! In her book 'Old Filth' Jane Gardam chronicles the life of Edward from his unhappy childhood beginning in Malaya with the death of this mother in childbirth, growing up in foster homes in Wales with truly ghastly foster parents, to schooling in England, a career in the law which takes him to Hong Kong. Hence the title Old Filth which has nothing to do with his standards of personal hygiene, but simply stands for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. Which he does with outstanding success. Along the way he marries Elizabeth, or Betty as she is known, but we actually learn very little about Betty in this first novel. Together they stand at the top of the civil service success ladder, complete with knighthood (him) and OBE (her). The story finishes with Sir Edward's old age in Dorset, thus concluding a most interesting commentary on the life of the expatriate in the British colony.

In this particular book, the sequel, the author tells the story of the other half of this success story - Betty. Betty is also a product of a traumatic childhood, having spent most of it in a Japanese internment camp, where both her parents died. We don't learn much about her prior to meeting Edward, other than that she is really quite directionless and finds herself back in Hong Kong about to accept Edward's proposal of marriage. It is not and never becomes a marriage of passion, poor Betty having no role models of what a marriage should or could be, with only distant memories of what her mother was like, and Edward of course has no idea what a marriage should or could be either! Not a good start you might think.

But being British and of the stiff upper lip variety, full of post war fortitude and the getting on with it attitude, that is exactly what they do. Along the way there are slip ups and the odd tragedy which is probably a very normal part of most marriages, and yet it is all handled extremely pragmatically and sensibly with Betty never wavering from her promise to never leave Edward. In fact the marriage and their lives together comes across as incredibly ordinary, whatever an ordinary marriage may be like! But, as one would expect of an expert story teller, never dull. Despite the rigid confines of the British colonial civil service, Betty does manage to find herself, and rise above the banality of life around her. The gradual change for example from being called Elizabeth to Betty is an example of this. As is her determination to stay in touch with her old school friend who also lives in Hong Kong, but a far more ordinary existence than Betty. And finally after years of indecision, deciding that yes she will leave Edward and follow her heart rather than her head.

Jane Gardam is wonderfully observant and insightful of people and relationships. She also writes very vividly of how Hong Kong was after the war in all its colonial splendour in an alien land. And then neatly follows this up with the tedium and uniformity of existence in London and later in the small towns of Dorset where ex-colonials of certain standing retired to. No spring chicken herself, the author is well into her eighties, and, has been writing for children and adults since the 1970s winning a large number of awards along the way.