A Boy off the Bank

"A Boy off the Bank" by Geoffrey Lewis

"Ten-year-old Michael Thompson has had enough. Mentally and physically abused by his drunken father, treated like a skivvy by his mother, he’s taken all that miserable life can throw at him; but then the final blow comes when his dog is taken away as well. On a bitter cold night in January 1940, he sets out to commit suicide – but all does not go according to plan.

A Boy Off The Bank tells a story of England’s canals in wartime, of the pressure and the pain, the humour and resilience of the boating people. Tragic and heart-warming, it charts the progress of a job becoming ever more difficult, against the wider panorama of worldwide events, seen from the perspective of a narrow boat’s back cabin."