While the characters that inhabit Mother Country may be fictional, their stories are not uncommon and are set against the backdrop of actual events that took place in Britain from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. The story reflects how so many Britons reacted to Black migrants and how idioms such as "Keep Britain White" and "No (blacks) coloureds, no Irish" were commonplace. The narrative is rich, direct and laced with humour and pathos, but without bitterness.