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An old man tells the story of his childhood to his grandson. He was born in an old workhouse building, the son of impoverished immigrants, into the poverty-stricken backstreets of a squalid northern slum in the troubled and depressed 1930’s. Son of a labourer and a cleaner, he daydreams a cherished but seemingly impossible ambition, way beyond his knowledge, station and age. Encouraged by his sickly mother’s aspirations for her only son, he yearns for the day, when he can extricate himself from the squalor and lack of learning of his allocated life. A bit of a ragamuffin, he is also a dreamer, bright, imaginative and adventurous, but nescient and naïve. Can he achieve his own and his mother’s ambition?