Based on a memoir plucked from his family history, A Pipers Tale records the impressions made on a teenager as he makes his way into the thorny world of shipbuilding. A world in which the author, during the 1960s, witnessed the change from traditional shipbuilding - where vessels were constructed with a minimum, but adequate, level of technical support via long established trade practices and skills - to the cutting-edge of science-based projects as the Shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness became a 'Leader in Marine Technology' with the making of sophisticated warships and first-of-class vessels.

Also covered, whilst saluting the Yard's Plumbing Fraternity, is the writer's amazement at the wealth of characters and personalities. With a dramatis personae of which any Dickens aficionado would be proud, the book dips into levels of humanity never before explored in a local industrial history.