Lesley Clare O'Neill

What is the secret of Joey and Spansky's success at the races?

VE Night, 1945. In a Yorkshire pub not everyone is in a mood to celebrate. Lorna Thorpe 's ' All-Star' dance band is missing two members, the beer has run out-and some influential friends on the city council have booked flights to Buenos Aires

Jill has everything; a successful career, four close, if somewhat exotic, friends (her 'family') and a live-in lover. They provide for all her needs including, eventually, a baby. But that is where reality sets in.

Amir is an illegal Pakistani immigrant smuggled into England in the 1960's to work, to send money to his family and perhaps even bring them over with him. A skilled laborer, he is forced to do unskilled work like shoveling sheep dung and processing wool. He lives in a boarding house with nearly a dozen other men, under the supervision of Hussein Shah. He befriends a young student, Sakib, who dreams of being a writer. Their existence is punctuated by secret movies, a visiting prostitute, fear of detection and deportation, and the gangster-like smuggler who comes by for his take every week. The household is shaken up by the arrival of a white girl, Shah's girlfriend, and the sense of femininity and family she brings.

All is peaceful in the garden of William Blake - a sanctuary from the stirrings of revolution on the streets. The arrival of an unexpected visitor, Thomas Paine , provokes an impassioned debate between the visionary artist and the political activist.

A man with learning difficulties suffers neglect and ill-treatment, and this is only exasperated when his parents die and nobody seems to know what to do with him. A sequel to this film, titled "Walter and June", was released in 1983 and set 19 years later in time. In the United States, these two are sometimes bundled together under the title "Loving Walter".