Peter David Mutton was born in Harwich, Essex during the summer solstice of 1955. His father was a Hampshire lad and his mother a genuine Cockney. He left England aged three for the sunny promises of Australia, specifically to Hobart in Tasmania where he has lived since 1958. He remembers virtually nothing of his first three years and very little of the eighties which is why he stopped writing these memoirs at 1980. Who can blame him?
He regards his early life as extraordinarily ordinary but thinks that what was considered ordinary during his younger years, perhaps now is not. The 50s, 60s and 70s are not 'living memory' for many people. This book is what he remembers of those years.
In 1996 he changed his name to Peter James Bond, having briefly enjoyed the name Lord Peter St. John Gordon-Bennett. But therein lies a story perhaps for the next part of his memoirs.