From beginnings on a gravel court on a farm in rural South Africa,
Gordon Forbes went on to travel the world with his long-time tennis
partner Abe Segal during the late 1950s and early 60s: the glory days of
Fred Perry, Roy Emerson and Virginia Wade. In this delightful insider's
account of tennis on the international circuit, Forbes looks back with
laughter at his tennis playing years through a varied, successful and
often outrageous career on the world's courts. This newly published
edition of A Handful of Summers brings back a cult classic, revealing
an era populated by the most colourful tennis players of all time. More
about the hilarious escapades of players than the game itself, the book
begins with a short series of vignettes from Forbes's childhood on an
Eastern Cape farm in South Africa, then takes the reader on a tennis
tour - into locker rooms and restaurants, narrow streets and small
hotels, and onwards to the lawns of Wimbledon and the caramel coloured
clays of Roland Garros. A player of international repute, Gordon Forbes
has managed to capture the irresistible charm of an era while telling
the story of a young man striving to follow signposts on the winding
roads of life. This is the first of Forbes's memoirs, followed by Too
Soon to Panic and I'll Take the Sunny Side. With an original Foreword
by Peter Ustinov.
