On his way home from the Aidensfield Arms one night Col. Clifford hits a boy on a bicycle. At his trial he gets a fine and is required to take a driving test. During the test it is discovered that he is night blind and he is only allowed to drive at daytime. Gina's old friend Terry Noble has gone AWOL after a fight with another soldier. She hides him although sergeant Craddock has asked his constables to be on the lookout for him. It turns into a murder hunt when the soldier he attacked dies, and Noble takes Col. Clifford hostage until he can get away during the night. Oscar Blaketon inherits a lot of money and has a business proposition for Lord Ashfordly, which Greengrass probably will not be too happy about. And speaking of Greengrass he is planning a French gourmet evening at the Aidensfield Arms.

There has been a series of break-ins at the homes of recently deceased persons and the clues lead to Cyril Fuller an old friend of Claude Greengrass. Greengrass is convinced that his friend is innocent and is persuaded to do something he would have thought he would never do - help the police! Blaketon has bought the Aidensfield Arms from Lord Ashfordly, and soon he drives both Gina and Aunt Mary crazy with all his demands. Maggie Bolton is enjoying motherhood so much she decides to quit her nursing job. But a serious outbreak of the flu may make her reconsider. Blaketon and Greengrass are both sure they will not catch the illness because they have ways to avoid it. Yeah and pigs might...

Celia Gilmour is calling at her sister Eileen Bayne when she scares off two burglars, Jimmy and Danny. PC Ventress inspects the place, but finds neither her nor her husband Tommy at home and nothing unusual. When Tommy Bayne returns PC Bradley and PC Bellamy check the house again and find Eileen Bayne dead in a locked room on the 1st floor. Meanwhile Greengrass is on to another scheme of Jimmy and Danny's. They clog up people's drainpipes and then offer to clean them again for £15 and Greengrass wants to clean up before they do. Aunt Mary gets a visit from Bill, an old friend who offers her a position as manager of his hotel in Sidmouth. Sergeant Craddock is going on a short leave to teach new police cadets at the training centre and wants a completely clean slate before he goes.

PC Bradley and PC Ventress are forced off the road by a blue lorry. They locate the lorry at the house of Tom Lowson, his new bride Mandy and teenage daughter Sandra. PC Ventress, who is acting sergeant in Craddock's absence, is convinced that Lowson is up to something, because he was the biggest black marketer in the North Riding area during the war. To prove it he orders his colleagues to inspect Lowson's lorries whenever they get the chance. Meanwhile Sandra is having a bad influence on her friend Alison Hartley, who is certain that she is pregnant. Sandra arranges for Alison to have an abortion, but the girls are late for the appointment and steal nurse Bolton's Land Rover. Faith Trueman is ill and ask her friend Greengrass to sell a valuable Georgian clock and other stuff for her so that can stay at the same hotel, where she and her late husband spent their honeymoon, once more before she dies. Only the stuff is not nearly as valuable as expected.

A group of young offenders has got permission to do some labouring work on PC Bradley's patch with only one guard, Blenkiron. Two of the boys, Varley and Sloper, wander off during a lunch break and break into a car. Varley returns as nothing has happened, while Sloper continues and befriends the famous writer Honor Gale, who has rented a cottage in Aidensfield to start a new book. Mrs. Gale also has a very soft spot for PC Bradley and uses every opportunity to call him. The election for the Ashfordly rural district council is getting nearer, and Claude Greengrass is helping Tom Drabble with his campaign with the reluctant aide of Bernie Scripps because he needs a planning permission for his latest scheme. Another reason is that Drabble's rival candidate is Oscar Blaketon.

Two armed robbers hold up a train just outside Aidensfield while a third robber threatens Quinn, the man at the signal box, into stopping the train so that his accomplices can make off with £200,000. Quinn tries to stop his attacker causing both him and the robber to be injured by a gun shot. A mysterious woman turns up at the Aidensfield Arms and asks for Claude Greengrass and David is very surprised to learn that she is his sister Bella, whom he has not seen for 22 years which is still much too soon for him. Mike and Jackie have set the date for their wedding. They want to keep it a secret, but soon the news is out all over Aidensfield. Yet Mike nearly does not make it in time because he stumbles over the injured train robber.

Claude Greengrass is playing host to a group of Norwegian history students. At the same time several burglaries are investigated, and Les Gulliver is a suspect as is Andy Ryan, a new guest at the Aidensfield Arms who takes Gina's breath away. The chief constable had asked Oscar Blaketon to form and chair a crime prevention committee in Aidensfield, and Oscar sees the robbery at the brewery as an excellent opportunity for his new committee to prove its worth. Not all committee members agree with him on how to do it.. Claude's Norwegians are especially interested in historic Viking sites. Only there are not many of those around, and Claude has to find a way...

The tailor Frank Hodgson wakes up when a red car smashes through the window of his shop at the middle of the night, but he only manages to see how it backs out again and disappears. Mike and Jackie are barely home from their honeymoon when Mike begins to suspect that she is seeing another man, Sean Banks, Banks is stopped for speeding in a car which matches the description of the one that smashed through Frank Hodgson's window and he mentions her as an alibi. Greengrass has lost his old friend Silas Moorcroft, who suddenly had a heart attack and had to be rushed to the hospital. But there will be no funeral because Moorcroft has donated his body to medical science. Of course Greengrass has a perfect solution to that.

An old man is attacked in what appears to be an open-and-shut case of burglary.

Film producer Denzil Arcourt and his team take over Ashfordly Hall for a couple of days to shoot scenes for a new movie. The whole village is impressed by the movie people, who stay at the Aidensfield Arms. But unlike most movie people Arcourt does not like it and get very enraged, when Gina takes a picture of him with the new camera she has just been given by Andy. David has bought a couple of hens from Nathaniel Clegghorn so that he can sell the eggs, but he wants his money back, when Greengrass discover both the hens are cocks. That is easier said than done when Clegghorn threatens them with his shot gun. Greengrass and David are not the only ones who find themselves at the wrong end of Clegghorn's shot gun. Lord Ashfordly gets in the same position when Clegghorn accuses his dog of disturbing Clegghorn's sheep.

Mike Bradley is riding his own motorcycle one day when he has to brake hard to avoid a collision with another motor cyclist, Barbara Lomax. Barbara is on her way to her mother's funeral. The Lomax family is very surprised to learn that she has left everything to their sister Vera, who has been living in an institution and not spoken for 12 years. When they clear out the house they find a box containing the skeleton of a baby in the attic. Greengrass has started breeding rabbits. And not just any kind of rabbit, but the rare Indonesian Rough Black rabbit. The only trouble is that they are as rare as in non-existent. But hair dye and ordinary wild rabbits may overcome that problem.

At the annual village fair Malcolm Colbourne, who everybody considers a coward because he did not fight in the war, sees a new tractor. The dealer John Bennett makes him a special offer which enables him to buy the tractor though money is tight. When the tractor is destroyed in a fire, he discovers that his wife has had an affair with Bennett for years, and Bennett finds out that Colbourne's role in the war was not nearly as innocent as he believed. David sees a fortune teller, who foretells that he will meet a woman with auburn hair and a Christian name beginning with a 'G'. Greengrass does not believe it, but the same evening a woman called Gloria Evans with auburn hair shows a special interest in both him and Greengrass. She wants them to clear out and decorate her house.

Christmas time is near. Somebody has been decimating Lord Ashfordly's population of deer, and for once Greengrass is not a suspect. As a matter of fact he agrees to help the police by posing as a potential buyer to smoke the poachers out. He is also occupied by his latest idea, a driving school - using Bernie Scripps's hearse. Jackie is handling a divorce case for Julia Kendall and she wants the police to enforce a restraining order against her husband Frank. Her daughter Katie misses her father and still visits him almost every day hoping her parents will get back together again. Maggie is in charge of the annual Christmas concert and she wants Katie Kendall to sing at the concert. A good idea because the young girl has the voice of an angel.

Billy Trotter returns for his mother's funeral, but is too late. Also too late is Stella Redford, who needs Mrs. Trotter's help to trace a little girl she gave up for adoption twenty years ago. Instead Maggie Bolton advises her to consult Jackie Bradley. The matter gets more complicated when her purse with her only picture of the child is stolen from her hotel room - one of many burglaries in hotel rooms in the area. Sergeant Craddock wants Jackie's help in a personal matter. His wife wants a divorce. Greengrass and Trevor Pargoe are staging a lurcher competition and lay out red herrings to throw off the police and Oscar Blaketon. The Inland Revenue is breathing down Greengrass' back again. They want to re-evaluate his cottage for taxation reasons. He does not!

Anthony Mottram lives with his dominant mother, but the quiet bachelor has his sights on a beautiful woman called Sandra and to afford dating her he is selling off four old maps from his late father's collection to Greengrass without his mother's knowledge. Oscar Blaketon is not pleased to find out that Ray Nixon, an old acquaintance of both him and the police, has checked in at the Aidensfield Arms. When Blaketon was still sergeant he promised Nixon a reduced sentence if he would turn queen's evidence against his accomplices in a robbery, but the judge saw it otherwise and gave Nixon a full sentence. Blaketon thinks Nixon will be out for revenge, but Nixon says his only in Aidensfield because of his old girlfriend Wendy.

Gina has brought young Sian along to help her behind the bar at a dance, but Sian is more interested in dancing with a young man called Ben Ealham and having fun. Gina scolds her and sends her home, but Sian runs out of petrol on her way home. The next morning Sian is found badly bruised and raped in her car. Before she is rushed to hospital Sian names Ealham as her assailant. Sergeant Nokes, who has temporarily switched places with Craddock, is certain she has an open and shut case, but Ealham's solicitor Jackie Bradley disagrees and gets him off on technicalities. This brings about a frigid distance between her and Mike.

The artist Joe Vaughan has rented a cottage from Lord Ashfordly to do some painting. He has had a bit of a clash with members of the local rugby club and they do what they can to annoy him. A Liverpool gangster, Boyd, is also interested in him and he has sent two goons to do the dirty job. His benefactor Rod Dundas organizes an exhibition at the cottage, but the night after the opening the cottage burns and all Vaughan's paintings are destroyed. Well not all of them, since one of them is missing. Greengrass gets a grant from the council for his new "romantic boarding house" and can soon greet his first guests. His old friend Betty persuades him to buy a share of the race horse Alnwick Flyer, which must be sold for tax reasons. There is something about Gina's boyfriend Andy that Oscar Blaketon does not like and he starts to follow Andy around like a shadow.

Gary Tyler visits his girlfriend Lyn, who works as a maid at Ashfordly Hall. When he sneaks out under the cover of darkness he is shot at and wounded by Lord Ashfordly's state manager Reed. Or so they say, but PC Bradley is not quite sure. Things do not look good for Tyler, because he has a suspended sentence, but he does not want to involve Lyn although she can clear his name. Greengrass helps a stranger, who has run out of petrol. The stranger, Bill Austin, works at a local newspaper and to show his gratitude he offers Greengrass a weekly column in the paper. The old scoundrel does not hesitate to make the best of it for himself and make full use of the situation.

Dr. Ian Peters is the new doctor in Aidensfield. His presence will soon be needed when a hit-and-run driver crashes into the car of Jackie's friend Sue. Both she and Jackie get only minor injuries. Or so it seems because it turns out that Sue has a severe, internal head injury when she collapses into a coma. David is a witness to the accident, and when he and Greengrass are picking up some old bicycles, which the old scoundrel has "borrowed" from Lord Ashfordly to hire out to the participants of a fun bike race, they find the hit-and-run car burning. Lord Ashfordly identifies the car as his old Bentley, and his nephew Charles testifies that he saw the chauffeur's son Eric sitting in the car shortly before the accident. Andy is trying to get back into Gina's good books, and he has some serious doubts about the new doctor's qualifications. But he might just be jealous because Gina likes Dr. Peters.

When young Lottie Turner returns from a horseback ride she finds her mother's employer Charlie Weller dead on the floor. According to a new will Charlie Weller leaves his whole estate to the Turners, while his nephew Martin inherits only some minor items of family interest. Martin Weller is unpleased with the terms of the will and he doubts his uncle's death was accidental. Greengrass has promised Charlie to look after Peggy Turner and her daughter, and he is not pleased when they are approached by Ray Walker, who wants to buy Charlie's upcoming racing horse Red Rover. When accidents start to happen at Weller's estate Greengrass is sure Walker is behind it. Samantha Neilson is a planner for the county council and she wants Oscar Blaketon's support in the council for a new industrial estate close to Aidensfield. Blaketon is in favour of the estate, but the old sleuth soon smells something fishy about the whole thing.

Roy Brooks receive a 6-month sentence for horse theft, but the sentence is suspended because he has to keep his family together after his wife's recent death. But it is an uphill struggle because he has a serious drinking problem. The following night the race horse Rio Boy is stolen from Lord Ashfordly's stables and Brooks gets under suspicion because his lorry matches the description of the one used by the thieves. Bernie Scripps accidentally tells Greengrass that he has psychic powers. When the old scoundrel has stopped laughing he gets the idea that they might as well cash in on it. Understandably Scripps does not agree. Phil Bellamy is babysitting Maggie Bolton's son Sam, but when he wakes up from a little nap to feed the baby Sam has gone missing.

Lord Ashfordly's game keeper Frank McCready is deep in debt with bookmakers and loan sharks breaks into Ashfordly Hall and steals the money for the staff wages. When his wife Mary finds out he promises her to pay every penny back, but she is afraid she will be regarded as an accomplice if she does not tell the police, what she knows. She sees only one solution to her problems with PC Bradley as an unlucky witness. Greengrass and David come across a stranded lorry loaded with bags of coal and the old scoundrel consider it their duty to salvage the coal according to maritime law - a very free interpretation on his part based on the fact that one of the wheels of the lorry is standing in small puddle of water. Not surprisingly nobody else sees it that way.

The Mazzetti family is running a fish-and-chips restaurant and a number of chip vans all over North Riding, but when the head of the family, Franco Mazzetti, dies his eldest son Paolo wants to sell off the chip vans and serve pizzas in the restaurant instead. The night after the funeral one of the vans is vandalized and the Mazzettis blame one of their competitors Big Eddy. Greengrass has bought one of the surviving chip vans to get into the catering business himself and gets caught right in the middle of it. Emily Poole is the victim of a series of break-ins and every time PC Ventress is out there like a shot to investigate. Mostly because she serves him tea and cookies every time and Mrs. Ventress has put him on a diet.

Jackie's parents are in England to meet their new son-in-law. They come from South Africa, are very conservative and not too happy about their daughter being married to a village bobby. And they are not Mike's cup of tea either. A car is found in the middle of a stream. There is no sign of the driver or any passengers, but the hub cabs are missing. It turns out that the car belongs to Archie and Marian Drew and was stolen the previous day on the ferry from Amsterdam. Greengrass and David pick up Micky Shannon, who is travelling around the country collecting old folk tunes. Shannon also has a business proposition for Greengrass. He has seeds for thousands of rare orchids and wants Greengrass to grow them for him.