Originally published in 1951 in a very limited print run, Childhood at Oriol - set in a small villa among the dunes of Le Touquet - is a novel about two energetic, mischievous and sensitive children and their encounters with adults who could have stepped out of a novel by P.G. Wodehouse. Burns depicts a magical time between the two world wars where the reader is poignantly aware of the sun setting over a childhood in a place that will soon be in shambles.