Lydia Weekes is a beautiful young woman, although she hardly knows it. Her volatile husband all but ignores her and then he is gone completely, leaving her to support their son Charlie on her own with longer shifts at the local factory. A secretive schoolboy, Charlie is increasingly left to his own rich imagination - until he meets the town's new female GP, who encourages his interest in her beehives.

This is the 1950s: when patients sit in front of a doctor's home fire in a carpeted waiting room, abortion is illegal and sexual freedom a source of scandal. When a wary friendship between Charlie's mother and Dr Jean Markham becomes a startling and renewing love affair, their secret passion invites suspicion from Lydia's vindictive sister-in-law, Pam, threatening the safety of her son.