Everything I Have Always Forgotten

Everything I Have Always Forgotten is an idiosyncratic memoir of a Swallows and Amazons-style childhood in north Wales in the 1940s and 50s.

Owain Hughes grew up in the family''s large but dilapidated house, son of the novelist Richard Hughes – whose circle included Bertrand Russell and Mick Jagger, aristocrats and spies – and the artist Frances Bazley, a member of the Howard family which includes the Dukes of Norfolk. Under their ''benign neglect'', Owain''s adventures include, aged just 12, a three-day hike through Snowdonia with a friend that ended up with the pair marooned for two weeks on Bardsley Island off the north Welsh coast. There are also trips to the Dyfi Estuary and Clough Williams-Ellis''s folly village of Portmeirion. The stories that result perfectly capture a period of post-war British life that looks back to Brideshead Revisited but also forward to kitchen-sink drama and angry young men.

Owain Hughes was born in 1943 was educated at Shrewsbury School and Oxford, after which he spent many years travelling, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. The author of two novels, he now lives in New York and Mexico.