Grand Challenge pie-eating contest : ' Winner finishes most whole pies off the belt in half-an-hour. Ties decided on a raw cabbage '. The Bedworth Hog faces tough competition.

Wilkinsons glass-works dominates a Staffordshire town. After a small walkout over pay discrepancies, the workers of the factory vote to go on strike, but they are denied support by their trade union.

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.