To give life to eight-year-old Mala and her gang, she’s drawn on her experience as a Sri Lankan living in the ethnic melting-pot of 1960s Bayswater, not so much on the breadline as well below it.
Stories of friends, laughter and longing – what better recipe for a night out?Filthy McNastys, 68 Amwell Street, London EC1 (0171-837 6067), Thur, 9pm, free. Eating in Edinburgh doesn’t have to break the bank; we pick places where bargain doesn’t mean basement Opening times apply only while the festival lasts. Rooted in vibrant village life and set against the backdrop of the country’s corrupt socialist dictatorship, the novel grew out of stories Kempadoo told her husband and son of her childhood in Guyana. Oonya Kempadoo’s first novel, Buxton Spice (Phoenix, pounds 5.99), which the author will read from in Islington on Thursday, is the tale of four girls growing up and growing apart in Seventies Guyana. A modern sculpture of the pipes of Pan protrudes from the river Dart like dinosaur bones Maurice Ash smiles. If the house is the focus of the Enlightenment and a celebration of Apollo, the soul of Sharpham is its celebration of dionysian pleasures.Sharpham Partnership, Totnes, Devon (01803 732203) Vineyard visits by appointment only.

Apollo, the winner, has had his block knocked off and rather clumsily restored. There’ll be a number of boat trips, for instance, this summer from Dartmouth and Totnes.Over the fireplace in the dining-room at Sharpham House, a relief shows Apollo and Pan in competition for musical supremacy. “No coaches, cream teas or bouncy castles,” insists Maurice Ash, but plans are afoot to give the public better access to Sharpham’s wines without sacrificing the tranquillity of one of England’s most picturesque vineyards. The Australian wine consultant John Worontschak added a third white wine, the 1996 Sharpham Barrel-Fermented Madeleine Angevine, pounds 9.99, a rounder and softer dry white.Is the enterprise viable? “It would be if we had a decent summer,” says Maurice Ash. Mark Sharman is more optimistic, pointing out that Sharpham has a strong following locally, while the image of English wine is steadily improving.

At the moment, there are no signs to Sharpham (basically, you get to the little village of Ashprington and turn left). The 1996 Sharpham Estate Selection Madeleine Angevine, pounds 8.50, is a dry, tangy, grapefruity white showing some of the tartness of the 1996 vintage. Ninety Tesco branches in the South-west sell the Dart Valley Reserve, pounds 6.49, a peachy, refreshingly crisp dry white in which the huxelrebe and reichensteiner contribute a dash of spiciness. Of the four grape varieties Pearkes advised planting – pinot noir, reichensteiner, huxelrebe and madeleine angevine, only the last turned out to be wholly suitable. Even so, most of the vines in the first experimental planting died.Three whites are made from madeleine angevine, all delicate, crisp and dry in the French style preferred by Maurice Ash. “She was a renowned viticulturalist, but had no grip on commercial reality,” says Ash, sardonically.

I thought he was bound to be suitable.” When Mark Sharman arrived in 1988, Sharpham was still in its infancy, with less than five acres of vines. After visits to France and Germany with Ash, Sharman was confident enough to begin winemaking.Today, the estate has 14 acres of vines. The mainstay is an obscure French variety, madeleine angevine. It was planted for its suitability to South Devon’s warm summers and red loam soils, on the advice of the late Gillian Pearkes. Ash recalls that, casting around for his own winemaker, “I found someone digging for gold in the Arctic. Ash’s passion is Sharpham Partnership: the vineyard and winery, and a dairy farm producing Sharpham’s four hand- made cheeses.Until 1988, the wines were made at Three Choirs in Gloucestershire.

In the main house, Sharpham College, a Buddhist community, takes in a dozen or so students a year. As the monasteries were once the focus of rural life in Britain, we wanted it to be a centre of learning and innovation.” The Trust leased out a 100-acre biodynamic mixed stock farm. “It seemed to me that a house like ours had no raison d’etre unless it was serving the surrounding community. From a first-floor window of the Georgian, Palladian-style mansion, Maurice Ash points to the vineyard, a patchwork of vivid green and chocolaty red, which slopes down a horseshoe bend in the river Dart. “It’s an attempt to regenerate the historic English estate in a new guise,” says the 81-year-old Ash.He bought the estate in 1961 and, with his wife Ruth, formed the Sharpham Trust in 1984.