Tim Hooper

In the early 1800s, Mary Yellan's life is changed after her father is murdered by shipwreckers. When her mother dies of a broken heart not long afterwards, Mary is forced to go live with her Aunt Patience at her inn on Bodmin Moor. It's there that she discovers her slightly mad Uncle Joss is the wreckers' ringleader and that Jamaica Inn is their headquarters. Mary is determined to bring Joss and his gang to justice and calls upon Joss' younger brother Jem to help.

An old woman's possessions are auctioned, and orchestral conductor Timothy Clare and his family move into her large, though rather gloomy and dilapidated, old house in Bristol. It soon becomes clear that this is a house full of secrets, and that Mrs. Betterton had good reason to leave with her young granddaughter, the ethereal, otherworldly Emily; after a series of frightening experiences and disturbing discoveries - including a walled-up room containing a skeleton - the Clares realise that they are not the only occupants.

Follows the eccentric Bagthorpe family – ineffective advice columnist Laura, frustrated and emotionless comedy writer Henry, Scrabble cheating Grandma, 16-year-old electronics whizz and tennis champion William, artistic 14-year-old Tess, and twelve-year-old 'ordinary' Jack, who decides to train their mongrel dog Zero into a super dog.

In between working in a supermarket by day and in a cinema by night, Connie caters for her placid Stan and adolescent kids Cheryl and Paul. But slowly she starts to rebel against the traditional women's roles she's been pushed into.