The second volume of William Woodruff's memoirs starts with him having arrived in Poplar in the early 1930s. On spec, he turns up at a steel foundry and luckily gets a job. Eventually he decides to "get some leernin" and his first white-collar job starts for the Water Board. Continuing to pursue his studies, he finally wins a place at Ruskin College, Oxford. How the ex-steel worker became an Oxford academic concludes this second volume.