The story of Joe from the age of sixteen until the end of his first year at Oxford, crossing the lines between childhood and adulthood as well as crossing from working class small town Wigton to rarified Oxford and all that promises for the future The main thread is his relationship with Rachel, the fifteen-year-old schoolgirl he starts going out with in secret for fear of her father's fury and ends up engaged to while at Oxford, until she breaks it off, knowing that they are on different paths in life and she belongs in the old, Wigton one