To the lengthening row of books on my shelves from the prolific pen of David Kynaston has now been added his latest hugely entertaining survey of the state of our nation as it was between the years of 1959 and 1962. This comes in the shape of A Shake of the Dice (Bloomsbury, £25), the second book in a volume called Modernity Britain. This continues a story begun in Austerity Britain, 1945-51, and Family Britain, 1951-57. It is part of a projected sequence, Tales of a New Jerusalem, that will eventually cover Britain’s history up to 1979, the year of Margaret Thatcher’s accession to power.

Kynaston, who is precisely the same age as me (63), is dealing this time with a period of which we must both have clear memories. This has brought extra liveliness, I judge, to what was already recognised as a sprightly writing style, while the satisfaction level for his readers — this one at least — is significantly enhanced by so much to feel nostalgic about.

References to popular culture abound, with instant recall kicking in for me at the mention of the most popular television shows of the time, including the Saturday-night ‘must’ Dixon of Dock Green, the grittier Z Cars soon to outshine it, Tony Hancock’s classic comedies like The Radio Ham, the Black and White Minstrel Show (“tip-top as usual” said a viewer) and the then-new Coronation Street, an early episode of which starred the future Monkee Davy Jones as Ena Sharples’s grandson (Kynaston is always good on interesting connections like these).

This was a time for television ‘personalities’ such as the ubiquitous Gilbert Harding ,“the practical farmer” Ted Moult (who we hear of presenting Housewives’ Choice on the same day that he was a panellist on Any Questions?) and Isobel Barnett, whom Kynaston follows an ignorant public in calling “Lady Isobel Barnett” (her husband was Sir Geoffrey Barnett, so she was Lady Barnett).

Life was to end sadly for all three of these, as it did, financially at least, for the “spend, spend, spend” pools winner Viv Nicholson. Rightly did Lady Barnett predict: “It’ll go jolly quickly, but let her enjoy it while it’s there.”

These were also days of pomp for Richard Dimbleby, who was not averse, it would seem, to welcoming his family aboard the gravy train. Kynaston writes (after mention of Prince Andrew’s birth): “Constitutional continuity was further assured . . . when David Dimbleby (undergraduate) and Jonathan Dimbleby (schoolboy) made their TV debuts [to criticism] on [their father’s] No Passport holiday programme.”

I was mildly surprised to find the author repeating the claim that Golden Wonder invented the flavoured crisp, which he first made two years ago in an article in the Sunday Times marking the 50th anniversary, alleged, of this breakthrough. If Golden Wonder invented them (as is also stated on their website) how come I vividly recall eating cheese and onion crisps (made I think by AGM) on a family holiday in Norfolk in 1958?

These were times of major slum clearance across the country, and of the high-density, high-soaring blocks of flats that were regarded as a solution to the housing problem. The residents did not always think it so, we are reminded.

Immediately after reading of the planned destruction of Blackburn town centre in 1961, I came across mention of a gentleman who a decade or so later was to perform the same hideous disservice to my home city of Peterborough, by ordering the demolition of many fine buildings — Victorian and some much earlier — at its heart.

This was Wyndham Thomas, later boss of Peterborough Development Corporation, but then director of the Town and Country Planning Association and sounding off as the decade dawned about a “gallimaufrous alliance” resisting progress.

That theatre critics do not always reflect the public taste is seen in the reaction to a show that opened in May 1961. “As sentimental as an Ivor Novello musical romance,” wrote one. “The most predictable musical I have seen for a long time,” carped a second. “The less said the better,” observed a third.

The show was Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, which was destined to run for 2,385 performances.