In 'The Best of Times' Kathleen Dayus brings to the reader more life stories Her extraordinary memory for the sights, sounds and smells of her youth, her marvellous sense of the comic, and above all her spirited refusal to do anything but live life to the full The author provides vivid vignettes blissful stolen moments with a neighbour's piano, long fearful nights spent singing with friends in air raid shelters, heartbreaking reunions with her children after eight difficult years of separation and the idiosyncracies of family and friends