Education in the 1950's and 1960's was at best, robust, and at worst violent and abusive. We are each a product of our education and upbringing, and the affects of both form our character, creating the adults we become. As the son of an average middle-class family, Ben follows the stereotypical path of baording school at the age of eight, an expectation and decision that he has no inluence over. Like so many who faced the same separation from all that was familiar, the shock is all encompassing. Over time, he learns how to survive the system, building an inner resilience that changes the essence of his character. What part of ten years of incarceration is reflected in the adult Ben, the man who goes out into the world to forge a career, find a partner and have a family? Funny, violent, abusive and at times shocking, Ben is part of a generation that followed in the footsteps of predecessors who went out and built an Empire from the same template, but were any of them the finished product their parents and society expected or hoped for?