In November 1945 corporals Harvey Moon and Lou Lewis return to London from Bombay, where they sat out the war as stores clerks. Harvey's house has been destroyed - not by a bomb but his wife; Rita's incompetence with the gas cooker; and his family have moved to a pre-fab.

Since he was reported missing, Rita believed him dead and would have married a Yank, had he not already had a wife. Unlike his young daughter Maggie and ten-year-old son Stanley,Rita is not welcoming and Harvey and Lou move in with Harvey's mother.