It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

Allie and Noah are teenagers in love, and that's real love not the first crush of youth puppy love stuff, but they live in a society ruled by class and are from different sides of the railway track. Reunited several years later it quickly becomes obvious that the fire is still very much alive and Allie finds herself forced to choose between the man she loved, fought and spent a summer of love with as a teenager or a handsome upper class fiancee, a rich and decent man, whom she likes a lot, and w find out more...