 Major complained in his memoirs that these words (which drew upon a passage in George Orwell's essay "") had been misrepresented as being more naive and romantic than he had intended, and indeed his memoirs were dismissive of the common conservative viewpoint that there was once a time of moral rectitude; Major wrote that "life has never been as simple as that".Throughout his time in office Major was often acutely sensitive to criticism of him in the press; his biographer Anthony Seldon posits this to an inner vulnerability stemming from his difficult childhood and adolescence.After leaving office, Major stated that "Perhaps up to a point I was too sensitive about some of the things in the press, I’m happy to concede that.