This is a story of eight young boys, Barney, David, Denis, Rory, Hugh, Dominic, Steve & Aaron, just about to leave school at the age of fourteen as that was the school leaving age in 1940 when this story began. It is told by BARNEY, who was the class Prefect, as Barney was considered to be the 'brains' of the gathering and he had the best memory. The story is related when Barney is a much older man, suggested by David, one of his old classmates, in order to record what the boys were like as youngsters and how they would develop as they grew up . . .