"What did you do in the war, daddy?" It’s a classic question – and maybe one that expected the answer to be stories of brave attacks on enemy lines, pressing forward against overwhelming odds. But to Gethin Russell-Jones, the question was not one to ask – he knew what his father had done and, growing up, would have summed his father’s contribution to the war effort under one word: "Nothing."

As a conscientious objector, and despite the fact that his fiancée was cracking German codes at Bletchley during the Second World War, John Russell Jones exhibited a different kind of courage. This is the story of a son seeking to understand his father, and coming to realise that behind the veneer is a man he never really knew – one who was prepared to suffer for an unpopular and unfashionable belief and a man who faced ignominy, insults, and opposition from the state to his family and still stood by his convictions.