‘A Privileged Minority’ – don’t expect another saga about wealth and rank, still less a familiar tale of a family shaping the course of history. The author conjures up his experience more than sixty years ago of the dying embers of the once unstoppable force of the High Victorian era. That was before the full whirlwind of change devoured the institutions that had survived two world wars, and the retreat from the peak of British power in the nineteenth century. Henry Poole draws on a canvas stretching back to the early eighteenth century. His family emerged into a settled way of life by the shores of Lake Windermere, only for it to be overtaken by the remorseless grip of public schools and service in the great professions of the armed forces, the Church of England, and the law. We then see the impact of the old certainties and values crumbling and disappearing. We end up in modern times, asking whether we are back, where we started, dependent on small businesses and the wit of traders, entrepreneurs and adventurers.