The year is 1973 and thirteen-year-old Alexis Greening, the son of a hippy couple who live aboard their narrow boat on the River Thames near the town of Reading, Berkshire, finds himself confronted by fourteen-year-old Justin Armstrong, the son of a senior diplomat and his wife. From this somewhat frosty and uncertain encounter, a friendship blossoms that finds the boys falling in love with each other. This then, is the story of their lives from their early teens through to their early thirties. Their struggle for acceptance, the terror inflicted on them and their fight for success in a world full of bigotry.