A short novel for teen readers, first published by the Longman Group in 1985, Viking Kestrel issued a trade paperback edition in 1987, with the Penguin Plus paperback following in 1988.

From an interview in the Australian magazine Magpies, March 1989

The pub I worked in when I was at school was the one I wrote about. I’d wanted to write about it always. I was twenty-one years ago, I think, and it all came back. What I had forgotten was the unceasing work. It just goes on and on. It is not mind-numbing in the way that production-line work is mind-numbing, it is not like waitressing, either. But it never stops and the fun of it I have never forgotten, and so much of it is true. I mean, the location and the sorts of people who visit the pub. Even the ghastly kids: that tends to happen in pub families; the children are so spoilt for the parents feel guilty, particularly if they live on the premises. !�Z0�