I was planning to give my mother-in-law the new biography of Ronald Blythe this Christmas. Then I read a review and had second thoughts.  I was aware the late chronicler of rural parish life had a bohemian side, but it seems that it was more extensive than I had guessed.

Reviewing the book in the Guardian, Patrick Barkham says that his adventurous early sex-life is related; his adventures continued in later life, when ‘unlikely opportunities arose, including a dalliance with the stand-in postman.’