Having made my career observing and drawing the attention of the public to some of the less attractive aspects of the modern world, particularly as they are manifested in Britain, I feel the need to redress the balance slightly… For a long time I have felt the paradox weighing on my mind that while my writing has been one long letter of complaint to my contemporaries (and I write every day), my own life is, and has long been, perfectly satisfactory.

There follow some examples of the relative ease of his life and some evidence, from his recent travels throughout Britain, of genuine civility and politeness among ordinary people, even from postal clerks serving their customers cheerfully.

So if we are surrounded often by evidence of degeneration, of egotism, of shallowness, of rudeness and ill-manners, of all that can make life a torment, so it is all the more important that we should seek out examples of depth of character, of kindness, of devotion to duty, and of all that can make life a pleasure for us. They are still abounding.