Word: blundered
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Blunder." Last year irrepressible Uncle Dickie privately published a book on his family tree claiming that until the Queen went through the formal process of adopting the name of Windsor in April of 1952, she had reigned two months as a Mountbatten, and therefore the House of Mountbatten historically "takes its place among the reigning houses of the United Kingdom." Last week, when Her Majesty announced her "will and pleasure," the press could not shake off the unpleasant conviction that Uncle Dickie was behind it all. "A victory for Prince Philip and his uncle!" growled the Daily Herald...
Charley organizes a gang of underaged cat burglars and the children blunder from success to pointless success, stealing trinkets for the excitement of it and giving them away. It is only after Charley is caught that Gary's book makes a descent into sentiment, coming closer to Dickens than to Evelyn Waugh, who also told (in his hilarious Put Out More Flags) of brattish evacuees on the loose in the English countryside. But the sentimental flaw is minor, and the book makes its point well: adolescence is a chrysalis whose occupant can be hurt, but not helped much...