Passing Glory, by Reay Tannahill – 0670907596

When Matt Briton, aged four, disgraced himself at Queen Victoria’s funeral, the repercussions echoed down fifty years and across two world wars. Matt, returning a war hero in 1918, rejects both his family and its traditions for a risky future in flying, just as Jenny Jardine, his brother’s shy, pretty young widow, turns from the great country house of Provost Charters to the triumphs and traumas of the Clyde shipyard on which the family’s fortunes depend. The result is a long, bitter conflict with remote, supercilious Paul Britton, his capricious and beautiful Russian wife Natasha, and Olympian cousin Howard – a conflict played out under the shadow of an old tragedy.