Britannic Metals is the name of a proud old-fashioned company with traditions still planted firmly in the Victorian era. This is a historical fiction/retro novel set in the late 1960s and features Terry Thimble, who at the age of seventeen leaves the comfortable world of school to start work at this company to follow his dream as a laboratory assistant. Here he meets many unusual and interesting characters, some of whom he will remember for the rest of his life; he has his first romantic encounter, he buys a car and learns to drive and is accused of a crime he did not commit; the young man also encounters a 'ghost.' Terry regards all of this in the manner of a spectator at the theatre, but eventually becomes disillusioned and resigns. The story represents 'a slice of life' for Terry Thimble and puts over with several quips of dark humour, his ambitions, frustrations, and disappointments when he discovers the work is not as he expected.