Charles Aird's unassuming account, written in Edwardian England, of his youth and introduction to the rapidly developing world of Victorian engineering, is filled with anecdotes of everyday events and understated dramas, revealing how social mobility combined with business acumen lay behind the rise of John Aird & Sons, from a penniless Scots family to a world-class construction company, which laid thousands of miles of gas and water pipes, and later built the Aswan Dam.

Introduction by: Peter Stirling-Aird