It was hailed at once by writers such as Kingsley Amis, Anthony Burgess and John Braine[1] who wrote, 'This book was for me - and I suspect many others - a seminal influence'[3] Deceptively simple in style and both comic and lyrical in tone, the novel tells of events in the lives of its narrator, Joe Lunn, a grammar school physics teacher; his girlfriend Myrtle, who wants him to marry her; his fri