A trilogy of tales set in World War II-era England. Adapted from the story by Elizabeth Bowen and set at the height of the war, Harold Pinter's The Heat of the Day, finds a woman torn between a lover (Michael York) who may be a spy, and a stranger (Michael Gambon) who claims that he can wipe the potential traitor's record clean. Inspired by one woman's actual wartime diary, Housewife, 49 tells the tale of an unsociable woman who volunteers on the home front, and experiences an unexpected reawakening. The final story, Island at War, centers on the German occupation of Channel Island, and the efforts of its British inhabitants to maintain their dignity without selling their souls to the Third Reich.