This is a story of a young man starting his career in road transport.

In 1945 17-year-old Shay becomes a trailer-boy on an Atkinson lorry that is noisy, cold and limited in speed. Driver Fred is one of the old school, a transport man through and through, who knows the best cafés, pubs and all the tricks of the trade.

Shay soon comes to love this life on the road despite long hours and frequent absences from his home in Kent. He even endures with good humour the misadventures of the terrible winter of 1947.

Author Leslie Purdon portrays vividly a host of lively characters: the drivers who worked, played and joked hard and the kindly landladies who provided a home from home. So what proves to be Shay’s proudest moment – when Rosie introduces him to the pleasures of manhood or when he first drives an eight-wheeler on his own? Read on and decide.