'one man in his time plays many parts' - "As You Like It." This full and engaging memoir covers Fitzgerald's eventful life from his birth during the First World War to shortly before his death at the beginning of the next millennium. Some of his earliest memories are of his childhood in Africa and he maintained a lifelong fascination with the continent, despite interludes in Britain. He served with the Royal Engineers in the Second World War, travelling extensively in Africa and the Middle East, and subsequently returned to Africa, first as a soldier and then as an engineer, living and working in many different countries. This entertaining autobiography of civilian life in Africa is full of vivid portraits of the author's family and friends and a world and a time which has changed forever.