A touch of Daniel
A Touch Of Daniel by Peter Tinniswood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I first read A touch of Daniel 45 years ago, quite soon after it was written, and only a few years after I had visited north-west England, where it is set. The story deals with the Brandon family, who live in a place that sounds like Oldham, Lancashire, where I once stayed with a college friend, Alan Cox. I had been reading other books set in the area, like Elidor, and so I found a kind of affinity and feel for the place.
A touch of Daniel above all gives a feel for the place and the people. It deals with the Brandon family, who take in various widowed relatives, and deals with how they all get on in a crowded house. It is both sad and funny, and the first time I read it, it struck me as amazingly realistic. If you wanted to get a feel for the culture of people in north-western England in the 1960s, this would be the book to read.
Daniel is a baby, said by some members of the family to be a source of “fluences”, and by others to be a victim of “fluences”. I thought “fluences” was a made-up word until I heard someone use it in real life a few weeks after I had read the book.
The first reading gave a feeling for the place and the people, but reading it again 45 years later it is also a remembrance of things past, a recalling of pre-Thatcher Britain.
I’m now re-reading the next book in the series, I didn’t know you cared.
