Sheila takes us on the journey which is her life, stopping along the way to mention the little details which have made her life a tapestry. The flies in the water butt, her mum's chips which opened the doorway to friendships, her falling in love and challenge of bringing up four children under the age of six. When Sheila's wildest dreams come true and she finds herself working, as a young girl, for the Royal Family, under the expert eye of Norman Hartnell, we find ourselves centre stage with her as she bumps into the rich and famous and brushes shoulders with stars. Her loss of her dear son, the imprisonment of her husband and the passing away of her mother draw the reader, with tears, into her life of sorrow and hardship but she manages, at the same time, with her account of her red panties being thrown at her on the zebra crossing in Kentish Town, to keep us chuckling.