Moonlight: Anecdotes and Reflections on a Life is an entertaining portrait of Spero Speare, a self-professed ‘national treasure’ with an idiosyncratic sense of humour. It examines a life of serene serendipity; revealing the personality of the author, who is generous with praise, and caustic in criticism.

Our ‘national treasure’ appears before us in a series of vivid anecdotes, and we see how his life experience and outlook expanded exponentially when he went to grammar school.

His undergraduate days took him to Hampshire to follow his fascination for all things geographical. Expeditions to Holland, Turkey and France were filled with unforgettable life experiences that left their mark on the young geographer.

After a wide variety of jobs, inside and outside the Civil Service, the geographer eventually transformed, like the metamorphosis of a delicate little butterfly wearing hob-nail boots, into a Chartered Town Planner. He worked on many large-scale town planning schemes, and ultimately met with Planning Ministers every week, whether they liked it or not!

A family man, Spero values the simple things in life, especially croquet mallets, and the possession of a sense of humour. You have been warned!