As he lay in the mud on the beach at Dunkirk, Danny Sutton didn't think he would ever see his home in London's docklands again. But he was one of the lucky ones.

Returning home, he is reassured to find that things are just the same: the smell of the wharves and warehouses in Tooley Street; the usual hubbub in Dawson Street, where aproned figures stand in doorways discussing the war; the men down The Globe; the children playing tin-can copper in the gutters. And at number 26, Danny's family crowd round to welcome their beloved son home. But, scarred in mind as well as body, Danny is to realise that things have changed.

Unable to do heavy work because of his war wounds he must adjust to a different way of life. And, worst of all, his childhood sweetheart, Kathy, didn't wait for him ...