The four novels in this book give four very different and memorably vivid accounts of what it was like to be young and growing up in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, from the 1930s to the 1960s. Poor Tom tells of a young man’s struggle to come to terms with the slow death of his brother in the city slums of a culturally impoverished Scotland. Fernie Brae celebrates the growth and education of a sensitive boy. From Scenes Like These tells a grim story as its young protagonist eventually succumbs to a culture of drink and violence where the harshness of life on the land sits next to industrial sprawl. The humorous style of Apprentice strikes a happier note from the 1960s.