Deck Boy

Deck Boy is a full-blooded and comical adventure story for readers of all ages. It is set in the mid 1970s, the last great days of the British merchant fleet when ships were beautiful, the dock basins were crowded, navigation was by the stars, and the thronging crews were very different from the crowd you met in the high street.When Ben Thomson, nearly fifteen, playstruant from his expensive boarding school, he has no ideathat he will neverreturn.All he intends is to visit his oldhome in Westport, but a chance encounter in asteamy workmen's caf on the DockRoad turns his life on its head.Beforehe knows it, Ben finds himselfescaping through a window, assaulted in anillegal drinking den, threatened by a murderer, changing hisname and hisappearance, forging documents, getting tattooed, making a host of new friends -and enemies- and outward bound on a voyage to the far side of the world.Surrounded by a crew of loyal, eccentric, gayand violent shipmates, Ben needs all his wits and courage to keep one stepahead of the law and somethinginfinitely more dangerous.In the space of a few months, Bendevelops from a lonely, self-conscious schoolboy into a resourcefulyoung manmaking decisions that may result in life or death.