First Sentence

"Nothing in Noel's life was quite what it seemed; the silk-dressing-gowned playboy pianist was in reality the son of a failed piano tuner from the wrong side of the Battersea tracks; the lifelong gay loner was all his life deeply in love (in every way but sexually) with Gertrude Lawrence; the passionate advocate of 'London Pride' and 'The Stately Homes of England' lived much of his life abroad, and the everlasting Peter Pan grew up all too swiftly."