Front cover for Patrick MacGill’s ‘Children of the Dead End: The Autobiography of a Navvy’. This was one of two interrelated novels. The other, 'The Rat Pit', was published in 1915. Both tell the story of Dermod Flynn and Norah Ryan, who come from Ireland as children to work as tattie howkers in Scotland. MacGill writes with first-hand knowledge of the experiences and conditions these seasonal workers had to endure.