A Bournemouth family struggles to make ends meet since father Durrel's death, and fits ever less in the stifling 1935 English atmosphere. After youngest son Gerald Junior 'Gerry' was caned at school for drifting to his passion animals, mother Louisa follows firstborn would be-author Larry's jocular advice to move to cheap Corfu, like his study mate Donald. House and furniture being sold, there is no way back, but luckily friendly cab driver Spiros Halikiopoulos helps them settle by bargaining cheap rent and everything else, even measly hypochondriac housekeeper Lugaretzia. While Gerry finds a friend in nature-studying doctor Theo Stephanides, found too intellectual for the kids' plan to end mother's own gloom by finding her a man, second son Leslie's passion for hunting suspiciously passes, as turns out to woe a local girl, while his feminist sister Margo persists sun-bathing close to the local Orthodci priest, whose pudor proves corruptible. Larry takes home his new; well old, pub mate Captain Creech, who proves a lazy sleaze and shameless womanizer.
—KGF Vissers