Anything goes - Billy Hopkins

It's December 1963 when Billy Hopkins and his wife Laura arrive back home in Manchester, after five years in Africa. The bitter English weather is a shock, but there are bigger surprises to come, for the world they left behind has changed beyond recognition. Now, it's the swinging sixties, with headlines full of the Beatles and the pill, LSD and mini skirts. Traditional values have been thrown into the melting pot.

As a father of four, Billy might have cause to worry. But his youngest son still believes in Santa Claus and while his daughter's reading Jackie, she's not even a teenager yet. Billy's more concerned about the welfare of his increasingly forgetful father and about the daily challenges he faces as a college lecturer than about the impact of modern society on his offspring. When the four junior Hopkins start to choose their own, unexpected paths in life, though, Billy finds it harder than usual to see the funny side of things...

ANYTHING GOES brings readers close to a warm and loving family who somehow get through all their ups and downs - the dangerous illness of a child, the astonishing money-making schemes of enthusiastic youngsters, the heartbreaking decline of a parent - without ever losing their sense of humour.