I was nineteen years old, still soft at the edges, but with a confident belief in good fortune. I carried a small rolled-up tent, a violin in a blanket, a change of clothes, a tin of treacle biscuits, and some cheese. I was excited, vain-glorious, knowing I had far to go; but not, as yet, how far.

So begins the adventure of the young Laurie Lee, who walks from his tiny village in a remote corner of Gloucestershire, to London and into the twentieth century. Knowing one Spanish phrase, he decides to take the ferry to Spain. Unbeknownst to Lee, Spain in 1934 was on the verge of war, and, inexorably, he becomes entangled in the passionate, violent and bloody confusion that was the Spanish Civil War.

Laurie Lee was an English poet, novelist and screenwriter best known for his three memoirs. Lee was brought up in the small village of Slad in Gloucestershire and his childhood is recounted in Cider with Rosie (1959), which continues to be one of the most popular books in the UK. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969), deals with his leaving home for London and his first visit to Spain in 1935. A Moment of War (1991) is based on his experiences in Spain with the Republican International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.