Miss Ursula Brett, known to her friends as Noodles, gets sent back to
her seaside school by her miserly uncle after apparently encouraging
improper advances from the persistent and slimy Mr Fitzgibbon. But her
vivacious beauty and kind-heartedness lead her into further trouble and
she runs away to join the seafront Pierrot players. Luckily, her brother
(with his best friend 'Snubs'), her aunt Mrs Millet, and her uncle's
neighbours Sylvia Shirley and Mrs Shirley, are all in Newcliff-on-Sea
for the bank holiday weekend.
Denis Mackail was born in London on 3 June 1892. He went to Balliol
College, Oxford, but failed to complete his degree through ill-health
after two years. In 1917 he married Diana Granet, only child of the
railway manager Sir Guy Granet, who was a director-general for railways
in the War Office. The couple had two children and lived in Chelsea,
London. It was the necessity of supporting his young family that lead
Denis to write a novel when office jobs became insecure after the end of
the war. With his novel published, his first short-story accepted by the
prestigious Strand Magazine and the services of a literary agent, A.
P. Watt, Denis was soon earning enough from his writing to give up
office work. He published a novel every year from 1920 to 1938 and among
his literary friends were P. G. Wodehouse and A. A. Milne. During the
1930s Mackail lived at Bishopstone House, Bishopstone near Seaford,
Sussex. Denis agreed to write the official biography of J. M. Barrie,
which appeared in 1941. He went on to produce seven more novels and some
books of reminiscences, but after the early death of his wife in 1949,
he published no more and lived quietly in London until his death. He
died on 4 August 1971.
