In 1900, a 16-year-old Toby Davies, the narrator of the story, leaves Wrexham workhouse after his Mother dies, and makes his way to the North Wales slate quarries.

Ben is found to have embezzled Combination strike relief funds; he and Nanwen are expelled from the community and it is supposed that they have gone to Ireland.

Over several years, Toby makes his way through Mid-Wales, lodging where he can and working as farm labourer, longshoreman, ostler, blacksmith's assistant.

He finds lodgings and a job in the Ely mine; in a pub he meets Bron, still a barmaid, now married to Sam but separated.

Wild rumours circulate that Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, has been seen on horseback riding the streets of Tonypandy with the Chief Constable.

Toby, as lodge treasurer, continues to draw monies from the bank and distribute ten shillings each week to the miners; barely enough to live on.

Starving people are forced to steal waste coal and kill sheep to put hot food on the table.

He finds that Ben has been killed in an accident underground and renews his friendship with Nanwen, who now has a daughter, Ceinwen, But police have followed him and he's arrested for the theft.

Toby serves two years in Cardiff jail; he is regularly visited by his mates and receives letters from Nan, now a schoolmistress in Senghennyd.

On his release, he returns to Porth, hoping to see Bron, but gets drunk, is thrown out of the pub and is brought back to Senghennyd by his mates.

The author dedicates the novel to 'the old gentlemen of Industry - sought out in homes for the aged, their little front rooms, in the street and on park benches......without the aid of such men this book could not have been written'.