John Sissons

Two boys. John and Kenny. One streetwise and football mad, the other cold and unfathomable. It's nineteen-seventy-five. The heart of London's East End. As John celebrates the Hammers beating Fulham in the Cup Final, Kenny tumbles out the door of the new people's house across the street having taken a beating of a different kind. When the new school year begins, John befriends Kenny, defending him from the ridicule of his classmates.

Sometimes, you don't know what sort of man you are until you are called upon to protect your family. Bethnal Green, East London, 1991. John Sissons is out of work, out of friends, and out of luck. Fortune soon smiles upon him, though, and he gets a job in a door factory. It's not much, but it's something. But as the days go by in the factory, and the layers are peeled away, John realizes he didn't get this job by accident.