This is a memoir about two cousins who started to exchange letters when one cousin, Beatrice, left for the States. They had grown up in an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins in the north of England.

Set initially in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, their lives were closely entwined.

Cousin Jeffrey had, at a very early age, become enamoured with the theatre of ritual so richly displayed by the royals. As such he became a highly skilled genealogist focusing on the royal families of Europe and then the FarEast. He was eventually chosen as Genealogist for the Thai Royal Family.