The second volume of Woodruffs memoirs starts with him having arrived in Poplar in the early 1930s. On spec he turns up at a steel foundry & luckily gets a job. His digs are with an old couple in Bow where he has to share a single bed (head to toe) with their mentally retarded son. Life in the foundry is grim but William is indomitable. For recreation one day he cycles (then in the days before inflatable tyres) to Berkhamstead to try & track down an old girlfriend. Shes not there & he has to return in a snowstorm
- it takes him eight hours to get back to Poplar & then he has to get up three hours later to work at the foundry. Eventually he decides to get some leernin & his first white collar job starts for the water board in.. . Brettenham House! He continues to pursue his studies finally winning a place at Ruskin College Oxford. How the ex-steel worker became an Oxford academic
- & Williams concluding description of returning from the war to meet the son hes never seen
- is deeply moving.