On Disguising A Character

© NMeM / Photographic Advertising / Science & Society. Man and woman reading by a fireside, 1950.

In Small Town England, nearly all the names have been changed. For the highly charged section called ‘Lincolnshire Love Rectangle’, the names have been double-changed then put through a special filter of Enigma Code complexity, so that it’s unbreakable. That said, there will be forty-somethhing couples sitting down to relax in the evening, reading copies of the book, and the bloke will splutter “Lips like cherries, thighs like California redwoods, brought up in Lincolnshire – my God, Gladys, he’s writing about you.” Sometimes you just can’t disguise a character.