Henry Nunn is an unassuming librarian resigned to a life of henpecked mundanity in Datchet with his TV-addict wife, Sybil. But Fate gives him a tardy smile when, on his 60th birthday, he inherits a small fortune and the house of his birth. Henry quits his job and leaves Datchet and Sybil behind, but his imagined escape to the scene of earlier happiness brings undreamed-of complications - perhaps he should have stayed in Datchet after all!