Plot summary

Best friends Davy and Ally have just returned to their hometown of Edinburgh to resume a civilian life after a military tour of duty in Afghanistan. It was a difficult tour with some not making it back at all, while others who did return, such as Ronnie who lost his legs, deal with permanent physical disabilities above the emotional scars. While Davy will move back in with his parents, Rab and Jean, and his sister, Liz, a nurse, Ally arranges to live with his single mother sister Christine and her impressionable but still precocious adolescent son Brendan until he figures out a more permanent solution. Beyond finding suitable work, Ally resumes his relationship with Liz, while Liz sets Davy up with her English nurse friend Yvonne, that date which has the potential to blossom into something serious. Things are difficult enough for Davy and Ally to return to that civilian life but things have a potential to get worse with anything negative happening in their respective lives, with Liz and Yvonne needing to look after themselves regardless of Ally and Davy's recent difficult military duty. What happens is affected by issues happening between Rab and Jean as they celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.—Huggo