White Tulip is
a garland for the flames, a
sequence of memoirs in verse for distinguished family and friends,
including the pianist Geraldine Swingler, the historians and peace-campaigners
Edward and Dorothy Thompson, and the author’s uncle Frank, executed while
fighting with the Bulgarian Partisans in 1944. China, Ireland, Litakovo,
Haworth and Thermopylae – White Tulip is a book about love and loss, the living and the dead, History
and memory, and the sudden
illuminations that force themselves up through the cracks in the pavement.