Rafe Crompton [James Mason] works in a weaving mill. He is a proud man but not a rich one, living in a garden-city style council house that sits beyond the town’s row of brick terraces. At the end of every week, he gathers the wages from his children and passes the money to his wife, Daisy [Diana Coupland], who, with their eldest daughter Florence [Hannah Gordon], keeps the family budget in order. Daisy often makes small allowances for unexpected challenges, and at the start of the film she feels compelled to lend a neighbour cash to prevent the repossession of a hire-purchase TV—even though she initially refuses the neighbour’s request, which angers Mrs Duckworth and invites a sharp rebuke about women’s work in housekeeping.
Daisy’s need to borrow from her son to help Mrs Duckworth save face with her drunken husband sets the stage for the family’s fragile balance to tilt. The tension erupts at the Friday teacake ceremony when the family sits around the table and recalls the memory of the economic depression that once drove some people to suicide, even to the canal. Florence’s younger sister, Hilda Crompton [Susan George], refuses to eat the herring prepared for “tea,” and Mr Crompton resolves to serve it to her again tomorrow until she changes her mind.
The Cromptons’ quiet routine is further unsettled when a box arrives containing a fine overcoat and a receipt for 40 guineas, a development that unsettles Daisy as she weighs the potential cost to the family’s finances. Mr Crompton, a fan of singing hymns, leads the family in a piano rendition as they try to find normalcy in the midst of rising tensions.
The herring mystery reaches a head when it goes missing, only to be found outside the house being eaten by the cat. Mr Crompton becomes suspicious and compels Wilfred Crompton [Len Jones] to swear on the Bible that he did not move the herring. The pressure causes Wilfred to faint, and soon both Florence and Hilda choose to leave the home—Florence to be with her fiancé Arthur [Keith Buckley], while Hilda goes to stay with the Duckworth neighbours. The move appears to be a step down rather than up, and Mrs Duckworth—still in her own tense, demanding world—navigates life around a poorly kept home, where Mr Duckworth’s blunt needs contrast with his wife’s steady chores, and where their daughter, Hilda, appears to be pregnant. The family’s economic fragility deepens as Mrs Crompton pawns the newly acquired coat to help her daughter, while Mrs Duckworth demonstrates how to break into the bureau to access the cash box.
In a moment of misdirection, Rafe discovers a missing button on his raincoat and, following a misguided impulse from his sons, ends up back upstairs with the overcoat. Realizing the risk of exposure, Mrs Crompton bolts into the rain and he chases after her, finding her staring into the canal, a clear sign she is contemplating suicide. He confesses that his parsimony is rooted in childhood trauma—his parents’ debt, his mother nearly gassing herself as a result—and he reassures her that their family’s safety matters more than the coat or the money.
Meanwhile, the Crompton brothers begin to pack up, prepared to leave, and the parents confront their collective reality. On the way home, Mr Crompton reflects that Hilda’s choice to remain unfed by herring may be connected to her pregnancy, and he vows to protect and love her if she is indeed expecting. In a turning point of trust, he reveals that he has always known of Hilda’s machinations with housekeeping money, but, as a sign of faith, he gives Hilda the key to the bureau and the cash box. Florence agrees to stay at home until she marries, while Hilda is asked to stay as well. The boys decide to stay rather than depart, and the family is restored.
Back inside, Mr Crompton plays the piano as Hilda joins in with a hymn, and the rest of the family gathers around the living room chairs. In the end, the Crompton family finds unity again, a quiet resilience born of shared hardship, and the sense that mutual trust can outlast financial worry and personal pride. The room fills with music, forgiveness, and a renewed commitment to weather the next chapter together.
