THE STORY SO FAR (Episodes 1 – 19)
Mike Longridge, itinerant
hairdresser, who learns much of the Tunbridge Wells gossip in his job, is
having family problems. His wife,
Claire, is convinced it’s only a matter of time before he’s done for drinking
and driving, and his son Andrew is addicted to fruit machines.
Ted
and Marjorie Blackburn used to live in a council house on Ramslye Estate until
Marjorie inherited a house in a posh part of the town.
Now Ted, a railway guard, is not allowed to
come and go in his uniform. Secretly
fond of Shakespeare, Ted meets antique dealer Donald in a pub one night, and
discovers a soul mate. Determined to
visit a Royal Shakespeare Company performance with his new friend, crafty Ted
food poisons Marjorie. Since then, Donald’s
young partner, Bamber, has caught the two of them together in a pub.
Jealous, and convinced Ted is a closet gay,
Bamber has threatened to ‘out’ Ted to his wife.
Dave
Whitby, down-on-his luck family comedian, is forced to dirty up his act and
accept work at a seedy stag-do, for crooked agent and fingers-in-pies man,
Harvey Boyle.
Much
to wife Maggie’s disgust, Gary Branston, who owns a chain of fish and chip
shops in Kent, has been having an affair with Sharon, one of his staff, but has
had his comeuppance. During an
assignation one night, both he and his girlfriend are killed in a car crash.
Gary’s
brother-in-law, Craig, works for a pittance in one of his fish and chip
shops. One night, Craig’s taxi-driver
turned out to be ex-convict, Tony Rice, with whom he once shared the same cell
block. Rice and he plotted to rob a
local Working men’s Club, and Harvey Boyle offered to provide Craig with an
alibi, saying he was with Mary Fernhill all night, should the police have him
as their prime suspect. That was up
until Gary died.
Now Maggie Branston has offered her brother
one of the chip shops and he no longer needs to resort to crime.
But where does that leave Mary, a single
mother of two boys, who desperately needs to earn some money?
Nigel Pooley, one of Mike’s customers, is a
bible-thumping salesman, who has met Jackie Ingbarton through a Lonely Hearts
club. Divorced, she has two teenage
daughters, who loathe Nigel, especially as their mother has hastily agreed to
marry the hypocrite.