Marking Time: My Family and I

Scratch beneath the surface of an ordinary British family and you never know what you might find: An Imperial Hofkanzler, a patron of Mozart and Beethoven, a Russian Fieldmarshall, a Calcutta merchant exporting opium to China, a donation that embarrassed and shamed the V&A. It sounds implausible but they are all here and many more besides.

Part one of this engrossing memoir tells the story of the four strands of Mathew Thorpe's forbears. Across the centuries he weaves personal stories and family research with major historical events and we see his ancestors in the context of wider history, the parts they played and the contributions they made, both large and small

Part two paints a portrait of the author. A ragbag of memories, disorganised and undisciplined perhaps, but all the more vivid for that.

From his experience as a schoolboy at Stowe and the beginning of his life long passion for horses, to his life in the legal profession and the compelling account of his role in silk in the Cleveland Enquiry, what emerges is a full and varied life. From its beginning in 1938 to its present state of continuous exploration of fresh fields, the reader will find a life well lived, still looking to the future, without undue nostalgia for what has gone before

The Rt Hon. Sir Mathew Thorpe read law at Balliol and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple. From 1972 to 1988 re practised at 1 Mitre Court Buildings in the Temple, taking Silk in 1980. His last brief was as counsel to the Cleveland Enquiry. From 1988 to 1995 he sat as a trial judge in the Family Division of the High Court. From 1995 to 2013 he sat in the Court of Appeal, and from 2005 he was head of International Family Justice.