The main character is Monica Morell. Monica and her good friend Judith are casual members of the Hinchley Hill branch of the Women’s Guild. They have recently joined the group, having been drawn in by the many attractions open to them, such as theatre and coach trips and shopping expeditions.
The ladies are soon accosted by a couple of well-practiced confidence tricksters, purporting to be a mother and her sick daughter. They attempt to inveigle Monica and Judith into making a wide scale appeal for charity to provide for life saving treatment abroad to assist the ‘afflicted daughter’.
Monica and Judith put the matter to the Women’s Guild leader, Lorna, who readily takes up the challenge. The only feasible means of obtaining the over half a million target, is tackled by the Guild by means of arranging for a WG member to take part in a T.V. game show that offers only very unlikely odds of triumphing.
Monica is elected to take part in the programme but narrowly fails to win the main prize. However, money duly flows in from a sympathetic public but the group is immediately faced with a dilemma when it transpires that their would-be ‘deserving case’ is not the genuine article.
Woven into this action is a very strong story line with an ongoing prospect of Monica reuniting with her very first boyfriend, Rodney, as the two have recommenced communicating with each other after a forty year period apart. Eventually, Rodney reappears to cause mayhem when his laundry is mistaken for the money received for charity. The decrepit Rodney fails to shape up with his yester-year image and Monica’s long held dreams of romance are shattered.
