In the shelter of each other

the long version

"Liverpool, April 1932. England is out of work. The mills are silent, ships are rusting at anchor. The king is ageing and his successor remains unmarried. In Germany Adolf Hitler has come to power and begun reclaiming lost territories. It is the wrong time and place to arrive in the world, but Jack appears all the same. A childhood spent in a bustling dockside pub in the roughest, toughest part of the great city and an early introduction to the school of hard knocks. Lawless, tribal and violent, but also exciting, humorous and generous. Bonded by poverty, few had much, but nobody died alone."--Publisher description.