In The Fib, The Swap and The Trick, George Layton's collections of short stories evoke a nostalgic, atmospheric view of growing up in the 1950s.
Now published together for the first time as a bind-up The coach started to move off.
I felt frightened.
All these weeks, looking forward to it, and now I didn't want to go.
Please, Mum, let me go home.
She was running alongside, waving her hanky and crying .
He'd nagged his mother for weeks to let him go on the school exchange, swapping his home in the backstreets of a northern town for a posh house in London.
With a proper family.
With a dad.
But now it was all going wrong .