Episode list

79-year-old Frank Ogilvy introduces 32,Brinkburn Street,Manchester,where,in 1931,some months before he was born his father, Walter,bricks up a blood-stained parcel in the attic wall,swearing his wife Gracie and her mother Elizabeth to secrecy. Some ten days earlier Walter a gambling addict had his arm broken by Billy Lamb,a local money-lender and small time crook,to whom Walter is in debt. With her husband off work Gracie takes in a lodger,a young Irishman who calls himself Sid,who is on the run, along with his friend Pat. In 2011 Frank still lives in the house with his daughter Ellie,her husband Nick,a reformed alcoholic and his teen-aged daughter Poppy. Frank is now an invalid and engages a carer,Joy,who faces deportation back to Nigeria as her visa has expired. Poppy finds various items from 1931,including coins,under the floor boards of her room.

Walter's injury costs him his job though he keeps it from Gracie and reluctantly joins Lamb's gang as they rob silver from a church,which Walter hides at his house. Elizabeth notices that Violet,Gracie and Walter's 15-year old daughter, is pregnant and suggests an abortion whilst Gracie finds Sid increasingly attractive. Joy's boyfriend David,a married doctor,is unhappy that she is still in Manchester as he has tired of her. In the same day he sees Ellie,who has problems conceiving and recommends costly IVF treatment,and Poppy,for whom he prescribes the pill,unbeknown to Ellie and Nick. Nick's business is failing and he attends a meeting to save it,rather than going to the doctor with Ellie,causing her to doubt if he wants a baby.

Lamb pressurises Walter into keeping look-out for a burglary that goes wrong. Violet's younger sister Nora has a fall and she is rescued by Sid. Gracie is angry with Walter for being out when he should have been minding his daughter. She also stops Elizabeth from taking Violet to an abortionist,claiming that the girl could die on the abortionist's table. On Frank's birthday Poppy gives him the photo album from the 1930s she found in her room.David is surprised to see Joy working for Frank but Nick is annoyed with the doctor for putting Poppy on the pill. Feeling alienated from his family Nick makes a play for Lynne,his AA sponsor,who rejects him and sends him home to Ellie. Ellie,desperate for a baby,asks Frank to put the house in her name to finance the IVF.

Elizabeth proposes that Violet goes to a friend in Blackpool to have her baby away from local gossips. Sid confesses to Gracie that his real name is Francis,or Frank for short. He has been caught up in sectarian killings in Ireland and,with Pat,hopes to escape an assassin following them and sail to New York.He asks her to take the girls and go with him but she refuses. Then he hears that Pat has been murdered. Billy Lamb is also killed - by Walter,with a candlestick stolen from the church after Lamb has threatened Walter's family. He hides the body in the coal-hole for the time being. Frank overhears David tell Joy he will not leave his wife for her and consoles her. Nick warns Mikey,Poppy's boyfriend,to stay away from her but this only results in the youngsters running off together.

Gracie is prepared to go to America with Francis but is moved that Walter killed Lamb because he was threatening her and the girls and stays behind,giving her ticket to Violet - which is why Frank cannot identify Violet or Francis from the photo album. Walter then walls up Lamb's body in the attic. Gracie is pregnant and will name her child Frank after his father. Poppy returns with Mikey and walks into an onslaught from Nick but Ellie defuses the situation and the family are able to talk sensibly and reach a compromise. Frank decides that,with his declining health,he will move into a rest home,giving Ellie the house and paying for Joy to return to Africa on her own terms. The family now united they set about enlarging the attic as a bedroom for Poppy. As they knock the wall down they make a shocking discovery.