Lucy Beresford is pretty, clever and firmly middle-class. She’s had a boarding school education, holidays with her parents in South Devon and goes ski-ing in Verbier every year. Her parents are delighted when Max, the son of one of their closest friends, becomes Lucy’s first serious boyfriend. She looks set for a life amongst ‘People Like Us’. But then Lucy - always something of a rebel - throws a spanner in the works. At her Northern university she falls in love with Rob, a good-looking, charismatic and intelligent young man, proudly the son of working-class parents. In the broadly egalitarian atmosphere their differences mean little, but when they decide to marry - much to the politely-veiled horror of Lucy’s parents - the gulf between their two backgrounds becomes all too apparent. Lucy, who thought she would be bored stiff with her mother’s life, now sees it for what it is - a life of ease and privilege. She and Rob start to row about everything - the children’s education, the type of paint they use to decorate the house (Lucy wants Farrow And Ball, Rob is quite happy with Dulux). Then Max re-enters their lives, complete with deeply Sloaney new wife - with astonishing consequences which force Lucy to re-examine all of her previous values.