In the late 1960s, Boy (aged 8) is sent away for a ten-year stretch at an all-boy boarding school in the distant district of peaks.

What prompted Mother - ignorant of any institutional malevolence - to abandon the child she dotes on into the care of people she knows nothing about?

Mummified by the experience, he careens through life causing havoc and damage to those who care for him, and equally to himself.

Sobering up is just the beginning, and the yearned-for journey back home is long, arduous and not guaranteed.

Only providence - in the shape of winged allies - can set him free. Will the birds come?