A collection of personal letters from a serving British diplomat in Beijing in the mid 1980s. Includes descriptions of everyday life for foreigners in a changing but still closely controlled China. Covers important developments including the signature of the Hong Kong Agreement by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, the State visit by Her Majesty The Queen in 1986, the arrest and expulsion of a British journalist, a rare meeting with the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, and visits to the then relatively inaccessible regions such as Ningxia, Xinjiang and Tibet. All of these topics are vividly and informally described in letters to family members in the UK, including the author's children and his parents.