Cider With Rosie's truth is not always of the literal variety

Reading Laurie Lee's vivid recollections of childhood, a nagging question mark hovers over its factual truth but should it?

At the end of the first chapter of Cider With Rosie there is a memorable description of 11 November 1918 in Slad and the end-of-war celebrations. There's a vivid image of a view through the window of the lamp-lit pub where "rose-coloured men, through rain-wet windows, seemed to bulge and break into flame. They breathed our smoke, drank fire from golden jars and I heard their great din with awe." There's a fight a man rises up and crushes a glass "like a nut between his hands" there's some funny dialogue and then, we learn, the schoolhouse chimney caught on fire:

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