Twenty-year-old Nicky Hutchinson returns to Newcastle in 1964 after several months working in the southern United States, where he participated in the emerging Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans. He first visits his girlfriend, Mary Soulsby, who is living with her parents and her disabled brother Patrick. He later has a small birthday gathering with Mary, his parents, Felix and Florrie, best friend George 'Geordie' Peacock and local councillor Eddie Wells, a friend of Felix's. After arguing with Felix about his past involving the Jarrow March, Nicky begins to campaign for the Labour Party in the upcoming election, much to the annoyance of Felix. Geordie introduces Mary to his friend Terry 'Tosker' Cox, who immediately begins to make romantic gestures towards her despite the presence of Nicky. Eventually, after feeling that Nicky is spending too much time with the Labour Party and no longer has time for her, Mary has sex with Tosker, which leads to her getting pregnant. Geordie, ... Written by GusF

Berger has been placed in a mental institution, where he is visited by Chief Inspector Roy Johnson and continues to proclaim that the Met is corrupt. After Johnson tells him that he is not senior enough to start an investigation into the allegations, Berger hangs himself. Mary has married Tosker and is bringing up their one-year-old son in a newly built high-rise council flat on Willow Lane that was pushed for by Austin Donohue, together with the construction developer John Edwards. The cafe Geordie worked in has been shut down, leading him to seek work with a Soho porn baron, Benny Barratt. It soon becomes clear that Barratt is in collusion with the police, using Geordie to bribe Detective Chief Inspector John Salway and Commander Harold Chapple. Nicky is continuing as an assistant to Donohue, but has grown incredibly disillusioned with his work and is suspicious of Donohue's deals with John Edwards. He is also finding it very difficult to remain friends with Mary, whose marriage to ... Written by GusF

Despite having their second child, Mary and Tosker's marriage continues to fall apart, as their Willow Lane flat becomes riddled with damp and insanitary. Geordie has become a close confidante of Benny Barratt's, enabling him to live a very comfortable existence, although he has been pursuing an affair with Julia. Barratt quickly discovers the affair, but remains silent about it. Nicky, completely disillusioned with the Labour Party, has begun to turn to the anarchist movement and is in a relationship with a radical, middle-class anarchist. The pair have a disastrous dinner with Mary and Tosker, who find they now have nothing in common with Nicky's attitudes or politics, and view his girlfriend as being condescending. Eddie Wells discovers that Nicky has documents that prove that Donohue and Edwards acted illegally, he asks him to make them public, but Nicky refuses and instead leaves immediately to go to London. Edwards has abandoned Donohue and is instead expanding his affairs ... Written by GusF

Nicky is now living in a squat in London with a group of armed anarchist extremists, intent on bringing down Edward Heath and his government by force. Geordie, through his connections with the Met, manages to track Nicky down and takes him for a night out in Soho, which proves disastrous as the two men have so little in common anymore. Geordie's position is suddenly threatened when a police officer names him as colluding with other officers, and an investigation into corruption in the police is instigated. Roy Johnson, who has been promoted, is asked to lead it, although Salway and Chapple lean on as many officers as they can to not comply with the investigation. The anarchists, shaken by Geordie finding them so easily, ask Nicky to leave them for their own protection. Shortly after he leaves, they begin attempting minor terrorist attacks on government buildings and bomb the house of a senior police officer. Back in Newcastle, Nicky meets up with Mary and Tosker, who have finally ... Written by GusF

Under the new leadership of Commissioner Jellicoe, the Met are finally beginning to crack down on the Soho porn industry, as well as their own internal corruption. Chapple announces his intention to retire, aiming to escape discovery. Meanwhile, the police have begun to quietly investigate the activities of Austin Donohue, interviewing a now bankrupt John Edwards in the process. Edwards gives the police Nicky's name in relation to a missing folder of Donohue's that they believe would prove incriminating. Nicky has remained in Newcastle, now living in the decrepit high-rise flat that he first found for Tosker and Mary in 1966. He runs a radical magazine alongside his factory job, and is now a keen photographer. He has also reconciled with his family, as they together experience the Three-Day Week enforcement. Geordie is released from jail and is bent on seeking revenge on Benny Barratt, whom he discovers has fled Soho for Spain. He seeks comfort with Julia, telling her that not one ... Written by GusF

Tosker and Mary's marriage has disintegrated to the point where it is completely over, but for the sake of their children, Anthony and Bernadette, they stay together. Depressed and worried about the loss of his hair, Tosker frequents local nightclubs with Geordie and together they have continual one-night stands. Nicky has returned to more conventional politics and wins selection as the Labour Party candidate in the constituency next door to Eddie Wells MP, who has since rejoined the Labour Party himself. His Conservative opponent Claudia Seabrook, the daughter of the now disgraced former Home Secretary Claude Seabrook, is given Colin Butler as an agent by the regional office, and he begins to run an extreme smear campaign against Nicky. Geordie, now living next door to Nicky, has been making a living selling drugs for corrupt Newcastle policemen. Shortly before his flat is raided by the police, he discovers that Julia has committed suicide and is convinced that Benny Barratt was ... Written by GusF

As the miners' strike is dominates all political life across the country, Mary has become Leader of Newcastle City Council and is actively supporting the miners, but her son Anthony finds himself on the frontline of the conflict having become a policeman. Nicky, whose career as a photographer has begun to take off, works with Eddie Wells to investigate the involvement of local businesses in breaking the strike at the same time as a now heavily balding Tosker is doing deals with these men. At first the relationship between the miners and the local police is friendly, but when large numbers of police from the London Met are sent in as reinforcements and there is an attempt by scab workers to enter the pit, a riot ensues in the village. Anthony is incredibly disturbed by the violence he witnesses, in particular the brutality of the London police officers. Feeling conflicted loyalties, he requests to be taken off policing the strikers, in spite of the threatened damage to his career ... Written by GusF

Nicky and Mary have been married for two years, and Mary has just become a grandmother. Nicky has become a very successful photographer who has had many books of his work published. As Leader of the Council, Mary is faced with hard decisions involving making cuts in services and being restricted from all she would like to do by new government regulations. Felix has become very senile due to the onset of Alzheimer's disease and Florrie, realising she can no longer cope, puts him into a home. Christopher Collins, who used to torment Felix and Florrie as a youth, is involved in a siege on his estate and ends up being shot and injured by a police marksman. Whilst on a book-signing trip to London, Nicky encounters student Alice McDonald who is writing a dissertation on his work, and he begins having an affair with her. After a few occasions together, however, Alice suddenly ends the relationship. Tosker is still married to Elaine and has become a slum landlord. Elaine dislikes this and is ... Written by GusF