Opening in 1919, shortly after the end of the First World War, the film focuses on the Gibbons family - Frank, his wife Ethel, their three children Reg, Vi and Queenie, his widowed sister Sylvia and Ethel's mother - after they settle in a rented house in Clapham, South London. Frank is delighted that his next-door neighbour is Bob Mitchell, a friend from his days in the army.
