This wry and poignant literary memoir follows the adventures of a young lad from Halifax as he is put through grim RAF National Service training camps and Russian language schools before being despatched to an inhospitable cold-war Berlin on a pointless tour of duty. A hugely evocative tale of coming of age in post-war Britain and a wry take on one young man''s reluctant and eventually absurd role spying for her Majesty.