At my public school I had hated every other face for fear the owner was a lord, at university, I was to court the rich while doubting whether there should be great inequalities between incomes.

Green grew up in Gloucestershire and attended Eton College where he became friends with fellow pupil Anthony Powell and wrote most of his first novel Blindness. He discovers that Nancy is the illegitimate daughter of Mr Grant who sent Charley to her thinking he might console her for the death of her husband an RAF pilot killed in action. She is constantly stifled in this venture by the man Henry Green calls 'Grandad' Craigan who is her father's best friend and with whom Henry Green lives.