Three-part period drama based on Finlay J MacDonald's account of life in the Scottish Hebrides in the 1930s. Unbeknownst to everyone except Finlay, Hector has advertised for a wife. He gets several replies and secretly prepares to meet one of the respondents. Finlay attends school in Tarbert and he and his friends smoke cigarettes and chase girls as recruits to the territorial army are drilled along the street. War is declared and a troop ship appears in Tarbert to pick up the local volunteers.