Boon

Box 13

Harry retires from the fire brigade and Ken is invalided out after his lungs are damaged while rescuing a boy from a fire. Harry buys a seedy hotel, The Grand. Ken buys a caravan, The Ponderosa, and tries to make a living as a market gardener. Harry suggests that Ken should supplement his income by offering to do odd-jobs for people - he places an advert in the local paper. His first client is Barney Spitz, a pop music promoter who wants Ken to dress up in an old fireman's uniform and star in a pop video!

Fools Rush In

Answers to the Name of Weston

Elena and Arturo Sandini (aka Helen and Arthur Sanders) run a circus lion-taming show. They ask Ken to recover their lion, Watson, which has been stolen by a group of animal-rights campaigners who want to use it to publicise their cause.

Grass Widows

While sorting out unpaid bills at The Grand, Doreen find s one relating to a man who has since died. Ken, Harry and Doreen visit his widow, Meg Lucie, and find that she is coping very badly, both with looking after the garden and with the paying of the bills. Ken and Harry sort out the garden while Doreen sorts out Meg's bills. They decide not to tell Meg that they suspect her husband was having an affair while staying at The Grand. Harry falls for Meg but she decides to sell up and move away from the area. Harry employs a new barman, Lionel Blakey, but soon discovers that his racist comments are offending both Hanif and the Asian guests. After an argument, Blakey resigns, which prevents Harry having to decide how to sack him!

Unto Us Four a Son

Laurie Langley, a has-been pop singer, employs Ken to look after her son after she suspects that her ex-husband, Geoff Greenaway, is trying to kidnap him.

Glasshouse People

Patsy, a young woman who is staying at The Grand, befriends Sidney Garbutt, another guest who has lost his memory. But what has caused Sidney to lose his memory in the first place?

Northwest Passage to Acock's Green

Ken is employed by a genial Irishman, Erroll McLaverty, to bring a canal boat back to Birmingham from near London. He takes Doreen and plans a romantic weekend. But two scruffy men, Appleby and Laing, are following the boat. Then Ken and Doreen hear strange sounds from the boat's cargo hold. They discover that an escaped convict, Alan Prendergast, is hiding in the boat - McLaverty had employed Ken to smuggle Alan back to his father, Walter Prendergast.

Something Old, Something New

Ken recovers the antiques that Philip Banks and Georgina Pemberton, a couple of corrupt antique dealers, have defrauded from an old man, Murdoch Johnstone. Harry is worried that Mr Dudley, an officious and demanding guest, might be a hotel inspector who will decide whether The Grand will be given a contract for housing homeless people.