Biography

In the rubble of the London Blitz of World War II, Alice Spencer’s budding teen life is turned upside down, and she and her dear friend Alfred are forced to take shelter in an underground tube station. When the ailing Alfred is quarantined, Alice encourages him to escape with her into their cherished book and journey down the rabbit hole to Wonderland.

Ricky Braithwaite, an ex-RAF fighter pilot and Cambridge graduate, arrives in London in 1948. Despite his First Class degree in electronic engineering, he is turned down for job after job in his chosen profession and discovers the reality of life as a black man in post-war England. Taking the only job he can get, Ricky begins his first teaching post in a tough but progressive East End school set amongst the ruins of a post-Blitz London.

Supported by an enlightened headmaster, the determined teacher turns teenage rebelliousness into self-respect, contempt into consideration, and hate into love, and, along the way, Ricky learns that he has more in common with his students than he had realised.