London, the early 1950s. Born deaf, Mandy is mute for most of her childhood. As she reaches school age her family itself is in danger of breaking up. Christine, Mandy's mother, has heard of a residential school for the oral education of the deaf.

In the days leading up the Queen's Silver Jubilee, Pauline, a recently separated single mother, receives a visit from a bailiff and is given 15 days to address her overdue rent payments. Meanwhile, the local council is under pressure to cut expenditure, and their decisions result in Pauline's mentally handicapped daughter Paula being transferred from a care home for special needs children to an old people's home, where she is all alone.

Based on the book "Spend, Spend, Spend" by Vivian Nicholson and Stephen Smith. Story of pools winner, Vivian Nicholson.

When Gerry Broadbent, in search of his roots, takes his fiancée Nita home to Brighouse, they find that the picture is not quite as he painted.