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It Passed Too Quickly. An Autobiography. By Air Vice- Marshal Sir David Munro, K.C.B. (Routledge. 15s.)
HAPPY is the man who can label his life story, written in the sixties, It Passed too Quickly ; and Sir David Munro's book is the infectious record of as gay, crowded and various a life as any man of his generation can well have lived. A hard-up younger son in the large family of a preparatory school head- master, he went to St. Andrews University at the age of fourteen. He lived there on about a pound a week, clad in the cast-off garments of his elder brothers, but contrived, in addition to his studies, to play rugger, tennis and golf for the university. At Edinburgh, where he went to qualify in medicine, he also occa- sionally played golf for the university, and he knocked up 52 in a cricket-match on the day of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. He joined the Indian Medical Service at the age of 24, treated patients, performed operations and enjoyed every kind of sport in all parts of India, saw active service in France and the Middle East between 1914 and 1918, and played a principal part in the organisation of the medical service of the R.A.F. Then, by one of the many rapid transitions that have so light-heartedly punctuated his life, he became secretary of the Industrial Health Research Board. varying these duties by hunting with the Whaddon Chase. Finally, he was elected rector of his old university, St. Andrews, arriving in an aeroplane for his inaugu- ration; and he claims to be the only member of the Athenaeum who has asked the hall Porter to look after a pair of polo sticks. This is a book crammed with honesty, courage and delight—a tonic if ever there was one. But, alas, he has only once caught a trout.
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