Stevie Monroe and John Beverage have been friends since childhood. They
are now settled in the Gorbals, a Glasgow slum. Stevie is elated when
his French wife, Camile, becomes pregnant with their one and only son.
John Beverage and his wife, Caroline, already have two sons. The last
thing they need is yet another mouth to feed.
It's 1902, the working classes are suffering from extreme poverty and
exploitation. Men line the docks in droves on a daily basis looking for
work. Even when you have a trade, as Stevie and John do, work is
extremely dangerous. Drunkenness is a perennial cause of casual cruelty.
Boot-legging is rife. John sets up a family distillery for some extra
cash to survive, but turns more and more towards the drink himself,
dishing out back-handers to his family.
Stevie, meanwhile, lives his life as a shipbuilding sheet metal worker -
a friend, a husband, a father, and a man with a deviance that has to be
kept secret at all costs. Deviant sexual practices are abhorred,
resulting in life imprisonment, suicide and murder. For homosexual men,
especially those from the working classes, Britain is in the dark ages.
Navigating this world leads Stevie to a life wrought with worry,
confusion, murder and love.
