Reading what is effectively an autobiography of someone I have never heard of, yet alone met, and isn't a celebrity in the modern sense of the word, should not have been a particularly rewarding experience, but it most certainly was. The book comes to life when Tony Doherty takes a holiday job at a farm local to his home in the rural Midlands. It's the mid-1950s and the author has a fine grasp of period and place and paints an evocative picture of a way of life now long lost to modern methods.
There's a wealth of social history here, all brought to life in minute and fascinating detail. Post War rationing and austerity gives way to the economic boom of North Sea oil and gas. The author's childhood freedom amongst family and farmyards is replaced in adolescence with training in new skills and a move further north to a place where coal and gas are already giving way to the nuclear colossus at Sellafield and the responsibilities of adulthood beckon.
It is the realism and truth of personal observation that elevates this memoir to compelling reading of the highest order.