This fascinating and compelling novel about the life story of Sir Alexander Ismay Strang, managing director and vice-chairman of Walbank Holdings, and of his friend Jervis Andrew Taylor the eventual Archbishop of Lancaster, takes the reader from the Prologue where Commander Robert Strang RNR goes down with his destroyer after sinking a German U-Boat in July 1942, to Chapter One where in 1955 his orphaned son Alexander Strang begins his engineering apprentice ship.
The reader is taken through the early development of Stuart Walbank and Strang a division of the now Walbank Holdings. This brilliant portrayal of an Englishman a champion of British Industry, brings to the reader a fascinating account Of engineers designing and installing mineral processing plants, locomotives and railway systems, surface and underground mining equipment, petro-chemical plants and textiles. It also takes the reader into the world of industrial strife and sabotage in the 1960's and `70's and into the 1990's, of doing business in Australia and South Africa during the turbulent years of Apartheid.
It is also a passionate love story of his marriage to his sensuous Scottish wife Agnes and how together they develop an international antique business and a mining museum.
A strong stand against Britain's closer ties with Europe brings Sir Alexander Strang into conflict with the pro-Europeans in Whitehall and the country.
In 1991 after a battle with terminal cancer Sir Alexander Strang is buried in the graveyard of Christ Church Burton Park. The choir sing Mozart's "Ave Verum", one of Sir Alexander's favourite anthems.
The eulogy is delivered by the Archbishop of Lancaster the Rev Dr Jervis Andrew Taylor. The Archbishop falters in his speech as he recalls his early days in this church with his friend and ex-fellow chorister.
