NEVER SLEEP THREE IN A BED

A bland but mildly warming mull of memoirs about a Canadian boyhood which predictably follows the pattern of nostalgia-samplers cross-stitched in the States. There's tile big uncomplicated family of high spirits and low income; the hell raising on Hallowe'en; beloved pets and interesting relatives and friends (including a sleepwalking aunt who hurled bedclothes in one hand and waved a lamp in the other); school peccadilloes and triumphs; the first car and its vagaries: some creepy rudiments of inaccurate sex education; sports and theatre and the movies, etc. Although Mr. Braithwaite avoids the inevitable preachments by those who look back with love and forward with apoplexy, this is still confined to the interests of those who empathize with chaps in knickers and illuminations by gaslight.