When Sheila, a young mother, fails to explain satisfactorily to the doctors how her baby fractured its skull, Margaret Ash down, an NSPCC social worker, is asked to investigate. Poverty, ignorance, a work-shy husband, and almost a tradition of family instability - these are only some of the things she discovers.

This story by the author of The Lump and The Big Flame explores the effects of a strike both on the men themselves and on their families