"Don't worry you won't be in there for long, and there's plenty of room where you're going." These are seventeen words to define almost all of Tom Walton's adult life. Looking back on his one hundredth birthday, he remembers a life of tragedy, retribution, and finally reconciliation, Tom's story starts in a Midlands mining village. Then he's taken to France and the retreat to the coast in May 1940 where he returns after the war-seeking retribution and then to a war crimes trial in Hamburg.

Tom is tormented by his experiences, which have a profound effect on two families.