Amongst the desperation and fear growing in a crime-ridden estate in northern England, one man becomes involved in. saving what little decency and community life exists. It's the winter of 1974: power cuts and coal strikes cripple the country, which is reduced to a three-day working week alongside police 'centralisation'. Everything, it seems, is falling apart -- along with the community's only hope and protector, the nearly retired Detective Sergeant Barry Harrigan.