The dirt on Old Filth

Jane Gardam's Old Filth, first volume of a trilogy, starts off well - very readable, esp afge my working my way assiduously through the 1st volume of the daunting Parade's End; Gardam's book like Ford's is told out of sequence, and with a few slightly off-putting narrative quirks (the first v. short chapter is strucutred as a chorus of voices), but she does have the reader's interest, and patience, in mind and is generous with back story and attentive to detail and narrative coherence. Essential set-up is this: Old Filth (can't even remember his real name, Edward something) is a retired British lawyer, who left London in his early years and made a lot of money practicing in Hong Kong (Filth is an acronym:Failed in London, Try HongKong). He's now back in the English countryside, widowed and somewhat isolated - and moving he finds that his new neighbor is another HK lawyer, retired, his deepest antagonist, opposites in every way. They ignore each other for some time, and then strike up a conversation, and perhaps a let bygones be bygones friendship, to the surprise of both. Then we go back to the chorus of voices - lawyers at the London "bar" - who envy OF for his prosperity, and say that "nothing ever happened in his life." Obviously that's not true - and then we jump back in time to, what we soon realize, is an account of his birth, in Malaya, mother died of an infection from the childbirth, father in that distinctly English cruel way, totally ignored the child, shipped him back to Britain where he was terribly mistreated by a family that took in Raj orphans, as they were called, and then off to a small boarding school - which may have been his salvation - the headmaster is a quirky Brit (aren't they all) but actually nice and attentive - a break from expectations there. But what is with these British families (saw the same thing in Parade's End, btw) with their complete indifference to their children? I've always joked that they treat their dogs and their gardens better than their kids -a situation that is perhaps class-bound and is also, I hope, a quaint and long-gone custom.