It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

Two Scots, Shaun and wheelchair bound Daz, share a stink hole of a flat with Daz's teenage son somewhere in northern England. As they try to cope with life we flash back, through Shaun's eyes, to their wild childhood and teenage years and, most significantly, to one summer with a girl named Kay. Much of the film is about wasted lives; Daz's accident, Shaun's stunted educational opportunities that stem from his rebelliousness and an unexplained inability to write, and finally his missed chance wi find out more...