The central charecter had been traumatised by a rapid descent from riches to rags and being of Romany stock was branded 'Pikey Joe'. The narrative unfolds as the subject's troop shiparrives at Tilbury Docks. War experience had broadened his mind and he embarks on a triangle of relationships with his Grandmother a gypsy and a former SOE officer married to an Eastern European Romany. The triangle develops nthrough his marriage and there is an explosion of business and civic responsibility and brotherhood.