London's East End, 1930s
Young docker Alfie Atwood was born into a poor but happy family and he was blessed with matinee-idol good looks which draw people to him like moths to a flame. His appearance and sunny disposition may be widely admired and even envied, but he isn't as carefree as he seems and has bitter experience of a darker side to youth.
When his father Bill is killed in a dockside accident, Alfie is forced to become the main breadwinner. He and his mother Alice are horrified to find that Bill owed money to some bad people—the notorious brothers Mosh and Solly Alexander. They "own" the district and now they want the debt repaid.
A docker's weekly wage and the few shillings that Alice can scrape together are not nearly enough...until Alfie's friend Frank whispers a solution in his ear. Has the time come for the young man to use what Nature gave him to solve their problems? And if he does, won't he be letting himself in for a whole host of new ones?