11 OCTOBER 1975, page 23

Fiction

English tragedies Peter Ackroyd Distractions Stanley Middleton (Hutchinson £3.75) Sweet William Beryl Bainbridge (Duckworth £2.95) The prose of Stanley Middleton is so......

Talking Of Year Books

Playing the game Benny Green In ambling through the water-meadows of English social history, I have just encountered a few Piquant conundrums which I offer to those professional......