Jack Hampshire grew up in the early years of the 20th Century in Sussex, where his father owned a threshing and haulage business. From an early age he was looking after steam traction engines, and driving them on the road when barely in his teens. This is his memoirs of this time in his life, which lasted until the firm shut in 1928, and is an almost unique telling of what it was really like to work with road steam on a commercial basis.