At the end of the week he gathers the various wages from his children and passes the money to his wife Daisy who, with eldest daughter Florence, keeps the family budget in order, often lending her mother the small sum required to balance the housekeeping book.

However, Daisy is prone to making allowances for unexpected pecuniary challenges; at the beginning of the film she feels forced to lend a neighbour cash to avoid the reposession of a hire purchase TV, although she initially refuses the neighbour (Mrs Duckworth) a loan, thus enraging Mrs Duckworth who went on to chide Daisy for allowing her husband to micromanage the housekeeping which she considers to be women’s work.

At the family Friday evening meal (‘tea’), the Crompton couple reminisce about the economic depression that drove some people to suicide, drowning themselves in the local canal.

Mr Duckworth sits around in a filthy vest making demands on his long-suffering wife while his daughter eats a banana wrapped in bread.

Rafe realises his raincoat has a missing button and he goes back upstairs to find the expensive overcoat instead, at the misguided urging of his sons.

He says he doesn't care about the coat or the money, and explains his penny pinching is due to childhood horrors experienced by his parents being in debt, and his mother nearly gassing herself as a result.

Mr Crompton plays the piano and Hilda singing a hymn while the rest of the family gather round on the chairs in the living room.

Memorial moved into filmmaking with If.... and Charlie Bubbles and wanted to make a film of Spring and Port Wine.

EMI, under Bernard Delfont, had taken over Associated British Pictures, whose companies included an independent unit, Nat Cohen's Anglo-Amalgamated.

[8][6] It was filmed whilst many of the old industrial buildings remained and as St. Peters Way was being constructed, and the film includes panoramic shots of an early stage of work on that part of the new road adjacent to St Peter's Church, where it follows the former course of the River Croal and the Bolton arm of the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal.

[9] The Guardian called it "not really a very good film in spite of James Mason's unwavering presence" but "it's a perfectly watchable piece of North Country flannel.

"[10] Sight and Sound called it a "sentimental adaptation" where "the cast make what they can of a script whose sugary pathos belongs more to Victorian melodrama than to anything resembling modern times.

"[11] Variety called it "an unpretentious opening entry, but it is extremely well produced and has a warmth and integrity that make a pleasantly entertaining switch from some of the flash cynical offerings of today.