A small, faded green, hardback book, with the title, author and publisher on the spine only. The fly leaf has just the title and a head and shoulder photographic portrait of the author fills the next page, giving the impression of a strong character.

The title page has the title in bold print, followed by the author, under which is the context:

For reason in revolt now thunders,
And at last ends the age of cant....

from the Internationale, 1871

The publisher is given from London only, and the printer W.& J. Mackay & Co., Ltd., from Chatham, is on the reverse.

The contents page lists the introduction and XII titled chapters, over 222 pages. There are two pages of historically interesting photographs, not listed. On the reverse is printed 'First Edition November, 1948.'

The introduction states that two reasons compelled the author to write this book: disillusionment with communism, and the discovery of a completely satisfying ideology.

Comment: more a political autobiobraphy than a Barnardo one.

There follows a vivid, well observed and clearly written account that starts with his childhood in a Workhouse, where he lived with his deaf mother, and an early sense of injustices, which is carried through a year or two in a Children's Home, followed by Barnardo's Watts Naval Training School, where he first found himself with a normal part in the life of a large number of lads. He had to fight for his place and remembers being told: "You've got plenty in you, but you'll never do anything great until you learn to be humble."

He flourished in the WNTS discipline, roamed the countrside, made strong friendships, ran the school boilers with industry and pride, and writes: 'Watt's was a wonderful place, and I was proud to belong to it. Whatever good I took with me to the Navy came through the training given there. When one hears the criticisms of voluntary and charitable organisations, it is well to remember such places as Watt's, for nothing but good can be said of it, or of any of the other branches of Dr. Barnardo's Homes. They have got as near to family life as is possible for children without parents.'

He then describes his departure from Watt's poignantly as he leaves for H.M.S. Ganges, the Naval Training establishment at Shotley, well known to many hundreds of Barnardo Boys that entered the Senior Service.

The rest of the book is an account of independence that takes him through a rebellion against injustices in the Navy, to the socialist political world, Trade Unionism, Communism, high-ranking Party Membership, International Communism, Battalion Commander in the Spanish Civil War, which is described from the front, and, finally, a Civil Defence role in London, during the Blitz of the Second World War.

With marriage and family life came reflection and religious belief, in the form of Catholicism, and the second conviction behind this moving account.

Comment: a strong survivor of being a destitute child.

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