After many years of faithful service to Pledge's Purer Pickles, the time has come for the firm's entire transport - Stan and his cart-horse Storm - to go into retirement. But what kind of a send-off should Stan get? He's the first employee ever to retire from Pledge's. All the others have died on the job.

Eli is showing an unusual amount of brotherly love - but can it really be just because it's Nellie's birthday? And is the Starlight Roof, Colne, the ideal place for a quite birthday treat?

Eli Pledge is a drinking man; most of his adult life has been one long lost weekend. One momentous morning, suffering from a size nine-and-a-half hangover, he goes teetotal. Lips that have touched liquor will never touch his…But then the withdrawl symptoms begin.

A week at the seaside for the pledge's. Majorca or Blackpool? There isn't really much choice when the holiday money's already spent. So it's a holiday on home ground. The Blackpool boarding house is coming up in the world to meet the challenge of holidays abroad. But not Mrs. Rowbottom's where the notices say ""after using the bath in the high season guests are requested to make the bed again"".

As captains of industry the Pledge's have a certain standing in the town of Colne; but when you're in court charged with causing a breach of the peace, can you ever hold your head up again?