- The Chew Valley Dam — the way it was, in a navvy's own words
- In Brief — the overview
- Strangers — navvying: a community of strangers
- The Sloping Lodger — navvy slang
- Bumpsticks — the navvy way of dying
- Beginnings — the canal diggers
- The Clockwork Shovel — division of labour and working methods
- Sod Huts and Shants — housing and lodgings
- Cat-Eating-Scan and Half-Ear Slen — navvy nicknames
- Impact — how navvies changed the countryside
- Moleskin Joe — the story of an Ulster navvy
- The Making of Hawick — through the making of a Border railway
- The Long Drag — the Carlisle-Settle line, the toughest job of all
- Riot — navvies at war with themselves
- War — the first military railway, and other stories of navvies at war
- Hagmasters and After — employers: who paid and who cheated
- Strikes, Truck, Cash — chiefly about pay and payment-in-kind
- The Navvies' Union — unorganisable labour
- John Ward — a navvy goes to the House of Commons
- Churching the Ungodly — the Navvy Mission Society
- The Great War — Navvy Battalions behind the trenches
- Ending — the last navvy job: the Haweswater dam
- Bibliography and Sources
- What Happened Next — The Author's Autobiographical Reminiscences
- A Navvy's Glossary [Not in print edition; created specifically for the Victorian Web]
