Seventeen-year-old Howell Trowson, while pondering whether to go to Oxford or to join his father's pharmaceutical company, suddenly finds himself in an unknown office in London, five years later. Convinced he has something to learn about his future, he sets out to discover what has happened in the intervening five years. Turns out--a lot. I enjoyed this 1972 book a lot; it's a quick, fun read. ( )

Notes on the Settings and Characters of “What Did I Do Tomorrow?” by L. P. Davies (1972)

Time Setting:
The book begins at the 1969 Founder's Day at Bud(d)leigh Hall School.
The main character, Howie Trowman, experiences a time-split (pp 15 – 16, 17, 36, 39), seemingly shifting from 1969 to 1974, straight from school to London, with no memory of how this happened.
Time change (p 20), and Howie is older (pp 20 – 21); getting on for 30 (p 22).

Place Setting:
London and Surrey.
Howie Trowman had started at Bud(d)leigh Hall School for the Sons of Gentlemen a week after his twelfth birthday, and he remained there for at least 5 years (p 6), until he was nearly 18 years old. – p11

Trowman Chemicals was started in 1936 (p 49); Its size (p 77). The Head Office was in Ferncroft Hall.
At the start of this book, the Trowman family home was Ferncroft (not the Hall) at Gretton*, near Epsom in Surrey (p 67), 5 miles from the A240 road.

London address: Rear 16, the Barony, Pickham, S.E. 15 . – pp 52, 124 - 125 The inside of what seems to be Howie's apartment is described (pp 59 – 60), and there is evidence that this apartment was shared with another chap (pp 60 – 61) who seems to have been absent for a while. Whilst it is unclear who this flatmate is (pp 61 – 63), it appears possible that he might be Martin Debroy. – p69
“Nothing personal in the place. No old letters or bills or anything with a name on. I mean, you think – there's always personal stuff kicking round in the place where you live. No matter how neat you are, you can't stop it accumulating. But here, nothing. It's not natural. It's almost as if somebody had been through the place removing anything that would help you find out who's been living here with you.” - pp 61 - 62

A stash of banknotes worth £15, 300 is found in the apartment. – pp 64 – 65
“Ordinary folk don't keep this sort of money kicking about the house. Unless they're running a one-man business and they're out to avoid tax. Which you're not. In business on your own account, I mean.” - pp 65 - 66

“If there is something fishy going on, a stranger asking questions about who lives here might not be too clever.” - p 67

“There's something – wrong about all this. Something very wrong. Frightening. … That flat of yours, Howie; I'm sure someone must have gone through it, taking away anything that might give you any clue as to the name of the man you're sharing with. It was only by luck they overlooked that old envelope pinned in the cupboard. Well, don't you see, for them to have done all that means they must have known what had happened to you, see? They must have known you no longer knew who you were sharing with. Otherwise there'd have been no point in removing all trace of him, see? …
“And there's only one way in which they could know. They must have been the people who've done this to you – done something to you to make you believe you've come from the past. I don't know how. … Maybe they got hold of you, drugged you or something, took you to that room, put the notion in your head you were back at school and five years younger, then left you to wake up, maybe with a message in your mind telling you to leave the room the moment you did come round. It could have been like that, I suppose. I can't possibly imagine why they've done it. Maybe they want you to lead them somewhere or to something. Something only you know about. … Some sort of secret. Something very important for them to have gone to all this trouble. Perhaps something only you know about on account of you being Trowman's son. … But I do know that something was done to you between that party last night and you waking up in that room.” - pp 78 - 80

Characters:
Howell 'Howie' Trowman had to choose between going up to Oxford University or into the family firm, Trowman Chemicals. - p 7 Apparently, after leaving school, Howie did neither. Instead he went to London.
“The Howell Trowman of an as yet unknown year in the future. … The Howell of 'now' had stepped aside to make way for the Howell of 1969, here on a visit to find out what the future held.” – p 21 It is at least 1972, because there is now decimal currency (pp 23 – 24); then a newspaper dated Saturday 6 July 1974 (p 25) indicates that his more mature body is 23 years old. The older Howie is apparently working for deadly rivals, Solmex. – pp 42 – 43, 45
Howie's car is located (pp 51 -52). His new address is found on a receipted bill. – p 52
“Once something has happened, you can't go back and make it not happen. And so back to the old puzzle of why had he been brought here if there was nothing he could do about it.” - p 57

Next, Howie is lured to Denver Close near the Barony, and nearly run down by a black saloon car (pp 106 – 110); later he is lured to the ruined buildings of Pritchard's Farm, near Gretton* in Surrey where he is nearly killed. – p 146

Other lads at Bud(d)leigh Hall School with Howie included:
- Martin 'Mick' Debroy (pp 6, 8, 31), who left to work for the rival chemical firm of Solmex. [Eileen Debroy was his sister.] Two months before the book opens, Howie had found Mick's murdered body in the downstairs garage at #16 the Barony.
- Andrew 'Andy' Brett (pp 12, 14), who wanted a job at Trowman Chemicals.

'Uncle Wilf' Wilfred Sinclair (General Manager of Trowman Chemicals), and his wife 'Aunt Meg' Margaret Sinclair were a childless couple who had been long-time friends of the Trowman family.

Christine 'Tina' Martin, whose name and address were in Howie's wallet (p 24), turns out to be in her late teens (p 31) and living in a London second-floor back bed-sitter. – pp 30, 34

Doctor Wharton and Poitier, the psychiatrist

Peter 'Pete' Foster, who was living with Nessa Bishop, two doors away from the apartment at #16 in the Rear Barony.

Mrs. Mildred Trowman, Howie's widowed mother, is now off-stage, having retreated to Geneva, Switzerland.

(Page references are to the 1973 Doubleday edition.)

Any chaotic incoherence in these notes and quotes will give you a foretaste of this novel, so please credit the late Mr. Leslie Purnell Davies for this.

* There are 3 Grettons in England, but none of them are in Surrey!

Also see the 2008 review of this book by Philip Challinor on his Curmudgeon website:
http://thecurmudgeonly.blogspot.co.nz/2008/03/what-did-i-do-tomorrow.html ( )