It's the early 1960s and summer is starting, with the Beatles playing in New Brighton's Tower Ballroom. While young Eddie's parents are away, he has to help out at his Auntie Vi's seaside boarding house. Here he shares a room with cousin Ray, a teddy boy who breaks his mother's heart with his charm and fecklessness. Soon Ray is showing Eddie the local highlights: the amusement arcades, the parties and the girls - funded by his resourcefulness with Vi's purse. Meanwhile the house is taken over by the Rodcoopers, a flamboyant troupe of theatricals playing a season of Gilbert & Sullivan. Leading man Charles is very fond of Vi, and offers a chance of an unlikely new life in London. Eddie only has eyes for one guest. Julia is bored, precocious, with dreams of becoming a model - and she can twist Eddie round her little finger. As Ray runs into trouble with the police, Eddie and Julia become involved in the sinister joke-shop Box of Tricks, with its under-the-counter packages, and Eddie learns more about the needs of others than he bargained for.