Once fashionable and plush with flowers, post-war Mayfair has lost its dazzling charm. But that didn't stop Charlotte Nettel and her husband Sir John from swapping life in the quiet northern countryside to convert their roomy Mayfair townhouse into flats.

Their tenants come in all shapes and sizes - from pregnant couple Jack and Jenny to German migrants Paula and Heinrich - and they provide a constant stream of both entertainment and anxiety. But it's Charlotte's stepdaughter Penny, a disillusioned young women born into the uneasy interwar world, who proves to be the most difficult and scandalous tenant . . .

Flashing between the lives of each tenant Carnegie Medal winning author Noel Streatfeild gives us a kaleidoscopic view of post-war London in her ingenious novel, Grass in Piccadilly.