In order to authenticate some historical papers in a cathedral town, Oxbridge academic Anderson stays at a local hotel in room 12, initially disregarding the lack of a number 13 as provincial superstition. During the night, noise conspires to keep him awake and the historian is astonished to come...
On holiday, a young man borrows a pair of binoculars when his own are broken. But they seem somehow bewitched, showing things that could only be seen with dead men's eyes... visions from the past. And using them could lead to a sinister rendezvous on Gallow's Hill.
Nearly a thousand miles away from their beloved Moscow, Chekhov's Three Sisters live in virtual exile. Olga, a schoolmistress, attempts to support her siblings and the home that is the sole legacy of their late father.
Cardinal Volponi tries to save his old friend, a priest-turned-militant communist, from being executed by the Nazis alongside 334 other hostages but struggles to reason with either the Vatican, the Nazis or his friend.
The commanding officer of a regiment handling nuclear missiles is shocked to see his daughter Sally on television taking part in a student demonstration.
When unmarried mother Maggie takes her son Terry on holiday to the Welsh fishing village of Gorbay, they meet Gareth, a member of the local lifeboat crew. But Terry's admiration of Gareth leads to tragedy.
' If he's been locked up all these years why is it all right to let him out now? ' ' New thinking.' But what happens when new thinking comes up against the same old behaviour?
When Elspeth Morris, 70, loses her beloved husband George, life becomes intolerable. Increasingly surrounded by people she has nothing in common with, she feels utterly alienated, abandoned and alone until circumstances lead to an unlikely friendship with her neighbour, Gurmeet.
