In 1939, a young Englishman rejects a diplomatic career and leaves England to become a tea planter in Darjeeling, India.

He marries an illiterate tea picker of Nepali origin and they have a son. The book continues with the son's journey through life: the prejudices he faces as an Anglo-Indian in both countries; the events in Belize, Burma, Jamaica and Sri Lanka that affect him; the women in his life; all answering the question, what became of him?

Jimmy Pyke is an Anglo-Indian who had a distinguished legal career in London for over 45 years.

He has written law books, but The Tea Planters Son is his debut novel at the age of seventy.