Some girls love him, some mother him, and some just want sex with him, but he just can't seem to keep the one he loves. What is it with girls? Fifteen-year-old Tim Walsh just can't seem to work them out. Tim and his mates stumble through first love, first car, first sex, and unwanted pregnancy, their rigorous military training hardly preparing them for the vagaries of the adult world. From a Dungog dairy farm, to Wagga Wagga, Operational Squadrons, and then the steamy back streets of Penang, Malaysia, Tim discovers females, fights, and drinking binges. Set in the turbulent days of the late 1970s and early 1980s Australia, Clutch Start reflects the innocent, indulgent, and sometimes precarious rite of passage events of the time.