The unlikely friendship between Johnny Jarvis and Alan Lipton begins in their last year at a comprehensive in Hackney. Jarvis, the loveable clown with a surprising talent for welding…Lipton, the apparently talentless reject, fantasising about the future and the father he has never met. At the end of the year they have to confront the adult world

Lipton and Jarvis encounter the amazing Stella for the first time. Turner finds work - of a fairly eccentric kind. Jake remains mysterious and evasive. For both Lipton and Jarvis their relationships with their fathers take a dramatic turn.

Life at the squat for Stella and Lipton isn't easy. Jake has disappeared again. Both Lipton and the mysterious "Colonel" want to find him - and the Colonel isn't too fussy about his methods. However, Turner is in work - if not earning money; and Jarvis is busy at Technical College, where he acquires a girlfriend.

Lipton and Guy become the self-appointed leaders of a band at the hostel, singing Alan's songs. Stella moves in to live with Johnny - and his mother. Then a surprising newcomer turns up at the hostel

Having begun as a sort of serial for Grange Hill graduates, this tale of two lads from London's East End has taken off on an almost surreal tangent, with a shadowy drug dealer called The Colonel holding the rock writer Lipton a prisoner in his mother's council flat. Jarvis is also flat-bound, and flat-broke, compelled to baby-sit while Stella goes out to work

Johnny and Stella move in to live with Alan in his new flat. But it's not easy to revive old friendships, and the tensions run high.