A fine, large, black, hard-covered book of 364 pages, with nineteen chapters, all untitled, 78 illustrations, ranging from personal childhood and family photographs to high peaks of the world of fashion in which the author was involved, and an even more comprehensive index, worth reading in itself. The text reads very much as that of an attractively frank and personal autobiography, and the listing of Fanny Blake with the authorship presumably representing a skillful blended duo.

The loose but durable loose cover, in black and white photographic tones, has a full length portrait of the author on the front, and on the back a most perfect photograph of the author seated beside Princess Diana at a formal dinner with the caption: 'This photograph is signed: 'From your number one fan, Diana.''

The same dust cover has, on the front flap, beneath a photograph of the author with his foster family, the following(with grateful acknowledgement to the Publishers): 'Born an illegitimate, mixed race child to a feckless young woman and an unknown Jamaican boxer, Bruce Oldfield's entry into the world was anything but auspicious. While his mother was moved fom hospital to the supervision of her family, Bruce was transferred into the care of Dr Barnaardo's Homes. By the time he was two, he had been fostered by Violet Masters, a dressmaker in the North of England, who became known as 'Mum' to the four other mixed-race children who became his brothers and sisters.'

'The unorthodox family never strayed from living just above the breadline but it was a happy childhood. To supplement her income from fostering, Violet worked as a seamstress. It was her talent for making clothes that captured young Bruce's imagination. What began as a hobby, learning sewing techniques from Violet, was later to become Bruce's career.'

'Unususally for a Barnardo boy at that time, he passed his 11-plus and was sent to the local grammar school, only to be removed from Violet's care and taken to West Mount, a Dr Barnardo's Home in Ripon, there attending Ripon Grammar School. Having trained as a teacher in Sheffield, he then moved to Ravensborne College of Art, and then to St Martin's School of Art.'

'After stints in New York and Paris, returning finally to London, he set up his own business in partnership with Anita Richardson in 1975. Since then he has gone from strength to strength, creating clothes that have his trademark simplicity and elegance for an extraordinary range of women from Princess Diana to Dame Edna Everage. One of the best-known designers in the fashion world, Oldfield celebrates his thirtieth year in business in 2004.'

It may be worth adding that his struggles through the student world, from the relative safety of a career in the classroom, to the precarious existence of an art student being measured by his creative ability and output, is absorbing reading, including the role of Barnardo's aftercare during that time, and there is much of interest in his sensitive and infectious account of the fashion world, added to which has been quite public support of the Barnardo's organisation.

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