The extraordinary early life-story of Thomas Jones, who, abandoned by his father at birth is bullied at school in the Valleys of south Wales. To defend himself, the seven-year-old is given boxing lessons by his grandmother. At fourteen he works the coalface of Drum colliery and survives the flooding of the pit. Two years later, he has enrolled in the British Army and sees action in World War II before being wounded and evacuated from Dunkirk. On his return to south Wales he trains to become a teacher and is reconciled with valley life, starting yet another extraordinary chapter in his young life. The novel melds several common storylines that affected the lives of many Welshmen in the first half of the twentieth-century. Thomas lived through desperate times but in the end he was one of the lucky ones...
