On Jubilee Place, a working class area of terraced housing in Battersea, housewife Marge Graham lives a life of drudgery with her unambitious husband Sid Mike Pratt and her small daughter, Cindy Sheraton Blount. Lodging next door with Marge's mother Lily Avice Landone is Harry Ian Hendry, a flashy salesman and nightclub owner who repeatedly attempts to seduce her. In the next house live Kitty Madge Ryan and Steve Meredith Edwards, with their good-time girl daughter Maureen Philippa Gail. Maureen works in a cafe with young Charlie John Hurt, and is having an affair with a rich dentist, Mark Robert Bruce. Marge works in a department store selling handbags where manager, Mr Fingus Derek Francis, makes continual advances on her.
One day Cindy goes missing and Harry helps with the search. Finding Cindy in a scrapyard, Marge realises Harry is much more paternal than Sid and she agrees to go for a drink and has a nice afternoon. Meanwhile, Maureen sets her eyes on another rich man, Mr Ransome Patrick Cargill, while out in a club with Mark.
Marge begins an affair with Harry and they meet regularly at a mews owned by Joe John Bluthal. After an argument at Harry's club, Maureen and Mark are caught in a car crash: Mark is killed and Maureen badly injured, scarring her face. She accepts the offer of a date with Charlie, whose offers had previously received short shrift.
Harry eventually tires of Marge when he meets her younger, educated sister Jinny Annette Andre, who has returned from college. It is clear that he is a man for whom the chase is more interesting than the catch, in this case even more so because Jinny has a boyfriend, hospital doctor Paul Tom Adams; the two men, with their differing class backgrounds, show mutual resentment of each other, with Paul denigrating Harry as a barrow boy.
Marge is still infatuated with Harry and jealous of Jinny, and suggests eloping and leaving Cindy behind. When she discovers Harry plans to marry her sister she attempts to kill herself by putting her head in the gas oven. She is saved by a rain shower which leads her mother to bring in the washing, close enough to the house that she smells the gas. She has left a suicide note exposing her affair with Harry, but her mother's chance intervention means an ambulance rushes her to hospital. Lily evicts Harry, and Jinny breaks it off with him. Lily suggests to Sid that he finds another job in "a nice clean area".
Ultimately, Marge recovers and Jinny marries Paul. Harry is left alone, with the final scene showing Marge rejecting his renewed advances before going home to her old street and what appears to be a happier household.
