The Fit Country

Summer 1919 to 1920. After mutinies and frustrating delays, soldiers are streaming back from the Front expecting a "fit country for heroes". But it is social discontent, hunger, privation, and a lethal flu pandemic that stalk the land.
Lewis gunner Jimmy Kelly returns traumatised to squalor, disease and industrial strife and decline in the industrial town of Ryaton. Many 'Pals' are not returning, others are maimed, physically or mentally handicapped.
Widespread industrial turmoil simmers and ruling class fear of a Bolshevik revolution is reinforced by demands for social reform from returning working class soldiers, their advocacy strengthened by universal elementary education and new cultural organisations and political parties.
Jimmy has shown both leadership and courage in France. He returns from the trenches via Fiume to his sweetheart, Kate. He is again a worker at Arthur Rowbottom's model village textile mill, an ardent socialist trade unionist, determined to change society.