Ivy Compton-Burnett's 19 extraordinary novels of family life were written in her middle to old age. But what had her own early years in the south coast town of Hove been like? According to her acclaimed biographer, Hilary Spurling, who appears as herself in this drama-documentary, she claimed they were "uneventful". But the truth was that the first part of her life was so traumatic that she could only come to terms with it through her writing.