Millions Like Us

The film opens with crowds of workers heading into factories, setting a wartime mood. A narrator reflects nostalgically on crowded beaches and the simple joys of summer fruit, like eating an orange, now scarce during the war. This sequence frames the social backdrop before Celia's story unfolds.

Celia Crowson and her family retreat to the south coast of England for the summer of 1939, staying at their familiar guest house. The trip sets up the close-knit family dynamic that will be tested by the coming war. The location emphasizes a peaceful pre-war idyll.

As the war begins, Celia's father joins the Home Guard and her sister Phyllis enlists with the Auxiliary Territorial Service. The family becomes involved in the war effort and begins to live under the new national pressure. The tone shifts from holiday leisure to civic duty.

Celia grapples with moving away from home as her call-up papers arrive. She worries about her father's disapproval and whether she should join up. Despite hesitation, the moment marks the start of her wartime service.

Instead of military service, Celia is posted to a factory that manufactures aircraft components. There she meets Gwen Price, her Welsh roommate, and Jennifer Knowles, whose upper-class vanity fuels friction with the shop supervisor Charlie Forbes. A tense workplace romance begins to brew in the background.

The film includes stock footage showing a four-engine Short Stirling bomber leaving the assembly hall and taking off, underscoring the scale of wartime aviation production. It signals the real-world context in which Celia works. The bomber would be produced at many locations across the UK in reality.

An RAF bomber base nearby sends some of its airmen to a staff dance at the factory, where Celia meets Fred Blake, a shy Scottish flight sergeant. The encounter sparks a mutual attraction amid a wartime setting. Their connection grows despite initial reserve.

Celia and Fred fall in love, navigating their different backgrounds and the pressures of service. They tease out a fragile closeness, with Fred eventually asking Celia to marry him. The relationship provides a personal beacon amid the war.

Celia and Fred marry and honeymoon at the same south coast resort Celia visited as a girl, only to find it changed by war, with minefields and barbed wire installed for defense. The trip underscores how civilian life contracts under conflict. The change in landscape foreshadows the wartime reality.

After their wedding, Celia and Fred set up a home in furnished rooms near the factory. The domestic dream is short-lived when Fred is killed in a bombing raid over Germany. Celia learns of the death while at work, marking a personal tragedy amid the bombardment.

At mealtime, the band plays Waiting at the Church, a song that carries ironic meaning as it echoed Celia's wedding reception. Bombers from Fred's squadron overfly the factory en route to another raid, a stark reminder of the ongoing conflict. Celia receives the news of Fred's death while still surrounded by her colleagues.