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.

Harvey decides to spend a Saturday with Stanley and take him to watch the Arsenal play football. However, since Harvey went away the team's ground has been turned into a bedding centre and they are sharing a pitch with Spurs - the crowning insult for Harvey, who refuses to set foot in an enemy ground.

To get back in Stanley's good books, he raids Rita's larder of the tinned treats provided by her American boy-friends and provides a slap-up tea.

Maggie goes on a date with Lou and he stays the night.

Harvey and Lou go to Bedfordshire to get officially demobbed, where Harvey, a non-smoker, uses his cigarette allowance to get Lou off a charge.

Back in London, Harvey finds that Stanley has been arrested for stealing a packet of cigarettes from a grumpy shop-keeper and again finds that a little bribery works wonders.

Harvey is not happy when Lou brings home a stack of black market sugar. He is no happier when the Labour Exchange get him a job as a stores clerk and he learns that Stanley is truanting. When he learns that Stanley only goes to school when there are sweet desserts he finds a solution for two of his problems, and quits his job to solve the third.

To reward head mistress Harriet for giving Stanley extra work to get him into grammar school, Harvey Harriet to an upmarket restaurant but feels out of his depth and walks out.

He is almost reconciled with Rita after beating up one of her fancy men who has assaulted her, but comes to see that she was just using him and returns to his mother's where Harriet brings him the food from the restaurant for a late night supper together.

With Christmas approaching Harvey is anxious to get Stanley a bike courtesy of one of Lou's spiv friends and works long hours as a department store Santa to get the money, though Stanley runs back to his mother after seeing Harvey kiss Harriet.

Harvey is almost rumbled when Rita brings Stanley in to the store, but, when Harvey's mother goes to see Rita to propose a Christmas truce, Stanley overhears what his father has done for him and returns to spend Christmas with a drunken Harvey.

Whilst Lou's black market activities flourish Harvey is stuck in a dull job in a wireless factory working for the tight-fisted Hartley.

He and Rita have to masquerade as a happy, united couple at an interview to get Stanley into the grammar school for which Harriet has recommended him.

A combination of misunderstandings and Stanley's tall stories about his father's war exploits ensures entry but Maggie feels her father is neglecting her to spend time with Stanley.

Back at work after the factory strike and with a pay rise, Harvey disapproves of Lou's involvement with local black market king 'Connie' Rosenthal. He is proved right when Lou is arrested for having four crates of whiskey in his car boot and refuses to name Rosenthal for fear of reprisals.

Rita, working in Rosenthal's drinking club, meets new gentleman friend Monty who starts to buy Stanley's affections. Harvey does a deal with 'Connie' that gets rid of Monty though it involves Lou getting sent down for three months.

When Nan, Harvey's mother, goes down with pneumonia, Harvey finds himself paying out doctor's bills and the money the imprisoned Lou buried in the park is no good as it is out of date, so that even Rita offers to help.

At the Labour Party club, Harvey urges the members to write to the government insisting they push ahead with the N.H.S. causing Harriet to suggest he stand as a local councillor.

Maggie has a false pregnancy scare and she and Stanley catch Harriet and Harvey kissing.

Harvey agrees to stand as a Labour councillor against the right wing Progressive Party's Clarence Saxby. To appear to be a family man, he bribes Rita to present a united public front with him, but she proves to be a liability. Fortunately, Saxby bears a remarkable resemblance to a man who keeps exposing himself to Stanley, thus ensuring Harvey's victory.

Just out of jail, Lou is dazzled by the stories Nan's old flame Wilf, who has made his fortune in Africa, tells and determines to emigrate. Unfortunately for him he decides to ask Harvey for a reference.

Harvey feels under pressure when Harriet gets him to ask Rita for a divorce, and both women decide to come on a family outing to Southend, during which Stanley, upset by their bickering and the fact that Harvey missed his school football game, runs off. Harvey catches up with him, in a mine-field, but there is reconciliation all round.

Harvey and Harriet spend a weekend with her father in the country. Harriet wants sex but Harvey prefers romance.

Rita also becomes an object of desire when 'Connie' gives her a job managing a bar in Mayfair, with accommodation. His attempts to mix business with pleasure cause her to quit and return to the prefab.

An unexploded bomb renders Nan's tenement block unsafe, causing the council to consider demolition and rehousing the tenants in a new town. When Nan resists, Harvey gets the council to change its plan but the bomb goes off anyway.

Harriet has moved to Holland to take up a teaching job. With the tenement blown up, Harvey and Lou end up in a doss-house but Harvey gets himself and Nan a flat in a house owned by Jewish refugees the Gottliebs.

Lou contracts tuberculosis and Maggie blames Harvey for leaving him behind.

Rita, working behind the bar in a hotel, is romanced by a charming ex-RAF type who turns out to be murderer Neville Heath.

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