The book starts in 1919, and most of the action takes place in Bristol. Bristol is a city straddling the River Avon in the southwest of England with a prosperous maritime history.
Maisie and Hugo Barrington get together when she is a works outing in Weston-super-Mare. Weston-super-Mare, also known simply as Weston, is a seaside town in the North Somerset unitary area in the county of Somerset. It lies by the Bristol Channel 20 miles south-west of Bristol.
Maisie starts working at the Royal Hotel as a waitress.
Harry starts in the choir and the boarding school he goes to provides choristers for St Mary Redcliffe. The Church of St Mary the Virgin, widely known as St Mary Redcliffe, is the main Church of England parish church for the Redcliffe district of the city of Bristol.
The characters mention Edward VIII's romance with Wallis Simpson, and his abdication. In 1936 and 1937, Edward takes the throne before Wallis filing for divorce. King Edward VIII reveals his love for her to the prime minister and his family. He decides to abdicate the throne for her.
Around that time the BBC had it first television broadcast. The BBC Television Service officially launched on 2 November 1936. This is often described as the world's first regular high definition television service.
Fred Perry was a Wimbledon Champion. Frederick John Perry (18 May 1909 – 2 February 1995) was a British tennis and table tennis player and former world No. 1 from England who won 10 Majors including eight Grand Slam tournaments and two Pro Slams single titles, as well as six Major doubles titles.
Old Jack was Captain Jack Tarrant, who was a hero in the Boer War. The Second Boer War (11 October 1899 – 31 May 1902), also known as the Boer War was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South African Republic and the Orange Free State) over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa from 1899 to 1902.
Jack's father was the vicarin Wells Cathedral, Somerset.
Harry and Giles go to Brasenose College. Brasenose College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509.
Harry comments on Jesse Owens winning the Olympics in Berlin. James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games. Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifetime as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history". He achieved international fame at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, by winning four gold medals: 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, and 4 × 100-meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black American man, was credited with "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy".
Giles goes to meet Harry at the Villa Borghese when they are in Italy. Villa Borghese is a landscape garden in Rome, containing a number of buildings, museums and attractions.
Giles hears one guide explain that Caravaggio painted Pope Paul V but he did not finish it because he had to flee Rome after getting involved in a drunken brawl and killed a man. Portrait of Pope Paul V (c. 1605–1606) is a painting attributed to the Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), now in the Galleria Borghese, Rome. Camillo Borghese reigned as Pope Paul V from 1605 to 1621. Caravaggio's biographer Giovanni Bellori records that the artist painted a seated portrait of him as pope, which must place the work between Borghese's election on 16 May 1605 and Caravaggio's flight from Rome in May 1606 following the death of Ranuccio Tommassoni.
Harry mentions that the Clifton Suspension Built was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel but he died before the bridge opened. Isambard Kingdom Brunel (9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history"Brunel is perhaps best remembered for designs for the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, begun in 1831.
While Harry is at sea, Chamberlain declares war on Germany. The news that Britain was at war was broken by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at 11.15am on Sunday 3 September 1939.
Harry becomes an officer on SS Devonian, which is torpedoed by the Nazis. The SS Devonian was a passenger steamer. She entered service in 1900 and was used on Leyland Line's passenger and cargo service between Liverpool to Boston. On 21 August 1917 the ship was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat.
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