Hardy Flower is a scruffy, likeable kid from a family of factory workers in Gravesend, Kent. Hardy Flower's mother, though loving in her way, is very far from being the perfect housewife, and his dad is a tad too quick with his hands. Often, Hardy and his twin sister go hungry and Hardy goes to school in dirty, foul-smelling clothes. Then war breaks out and soon the Luftwaffe is raining down bombs on the dockyards, factories and terraces every night. The twins, like many other children, are sent into the countryside as evacuees—and there, it seems, an even worse fate lies in store for them...

Rich in period detail, Race You to the Ragman! is the powerful, entertaining and sometimes harrowing tale of one boy's determination to find happiness, friendship and food in the stern face of poverty, humiliation and abuse.

Tom Davis was six-years-old on the outbreak of World War 2, and Race You to the Ragman! follows his own experiences. After leaving school, Tom served a six-year apprenticeship in steel fabrication and worked in the construction industry until the 1980s. He has been writing stories of Hardy Flower for several years and lives in Gravesend, Kent.