In London during the Second World War, nine-year-old George is the mixed-race son of Rita and Marcus, a Black man who was deported to Grenada. George remains in the city with his mother, their cat Olly, and Rita’s father Gerald, a pianist who pushes for safety. As the Blitz intensifies, Gerald urges Rita to evacuate George to the countryside, handing him a bit of pocket money while Rita gifts him a Saint Christopher medallion that once belonged to his father.
George is sent away from London to the countryside amid the air raids. He is initially furious with his mother for sending him off and refuses to say goodbye at the station, leaving Rita distraught. On the train, a group of boys taunts him about the texture of his hair, comparing it to a dog. A girl opposite him defends him, and George, drawing strength from a line he learned from his grandfather, stands up to the bullies. The moment earns a quiet admiration from the girl, who is watching him from across the carriage.
Desperate to return home, George makes a bold decision. He jumps off the moving train, running back toward London. He slips onto an eastbound goods train and meets three brothers along the way. He shares with them the one thing he packed—a strawberry jam sandwich. The next morning, the brothers manage to escape, though one is tragically killed by an oncoming train. With coins given by his grandfather, George eventually catches a bus back toward the city.
The journey is punctuated by painful memories. In one flashback, a neighborhood boy calls him a racial slur after a cricket match. In another, Rita and Marcus dance at a swing club, and Marcus presents the Saint Christopher medallion—an heirloom that once belonged to Marcus’s mother. As they leave, Marcus is assaulted by racist thugs and, when he defends himself, is dragged away by the police who dismiss him as the aggressor.
Back in London, Rita performs on a BBC radio broadcast from the factory where she works. After the program, coworkers join the stage to demand that the underground stations be opened as shelters. Rita faces criticism because of her mixed-race son, while her friend Jack speaks up in her defense in a tense moment at a local pub.
George briefly finds his footing in London but cannot locate his home in Stepney. While gazing at storefront displays about colonial sugar production and is exposed to caricatures of Black men, he is discovered by Ife, an ARP warden from Nigeria who takes him to a shelter that represents the city’s multiethnic East End. Inside, a Sikh family’s space is challenged by another resident, and a Jewish man steps in to defend them. Ife intervenes with a powerful speech about unity, promising to help George find his way home in the morning after his shift. The next day, a grim reality emerges: Ife has been killed while aiding a woman during the bombing.
George’s troubles deepen at work for Rita when she is summoned to her supervisor’s office. The Board of Education informs them that George did not reach his destination and had apparently jumped from the train. Fury drives Rita to rush out, determined to bring her son back, even if it costs her job.
Hungry and unprotected, George encounters Jess, a member of a thieves’ gang who pretends to help him but instead pressures him to participate in looting a damaged jewelry store and a bombed club. The ordeal is terrifying, complete with threats and grisly imagery of the dead, and George must escape. He seeks shelter in an overcrowded underground station, where the morning light finally comes as the Tube’s floodwaters recede and the gates are opened to let people escape.
George awakens in a strange bed with a woman named Ruby who seems helpful but has already alerted the police about a missing child. He escapes through a window and makes his way back to Stepney. When he reaches his block on Clifford Lane, he discovers his building had been bombed the night before. Rescue teams pull the family cat Olly from the rubble, and George finds his grandfather Gerald among the debris, tragically killed in the blast. A tearful reunion follows as Rita arrives, and the two share a bittersweet moment among the ruined walls, finally acknowledging the resilience of their bond in a city scarred by war.
