Window cleaner Tim Bradshaw, a naive twenty-two year old Londoner, is about to join London Underground in search of a better working life. After cheating on his aptitude test, he is offered employment as a Station Assistant. During the recruitment process, he meets another recruit named Richard, and they become the best of friends.
Tim's station training is marked by a series of hilarious pitfalls, as time and again his naivety, and incompetence, lead him into difficulties - even landing him in the hospital a few times. Despite his growing reputation around the network for cock-ups, Tim...

The first chapter introduces the author, Robert, with a vivid and amusing description of his stressful London life. Strong characterisation of the people he works with gets the book off to an immediately absorbing start. Working at all hours in a tiny jewellers for a pittance, it becomes clear that the life he leads cannot go on as it is for much longer as his health and family life starts to suffer. A trip to France with a friend, Tom, who wants to buy a house there, gets him thinking. Descriptions of the French countryside and French way of life makes him realise the contrasts he is leading...