Jean and Lionel, played by Dame Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer, are two characters who fell in love during the early 1950s, but who lost touch with each other when army officer Lionel was sent off to Korea. For 38 years, they assumed the other had lost interest. When Lionel returned to England after all that time to write his memoirs of his life in the army and subsequently as a coffee-planter in Kenya, he sought out an agency temp to handle the typing of the manuscript. After meeting a young secretary, Judith, and hitting it off, they agreed to meet for dinner. That evening, Lionel chances upon Judith's mother, who happens to be his long-lost sweetheart, Jean. Could their love be rekindled after so long? This series answers that question with wit, humor, sensitivity, and love, and has been a delight to many viewers on both sides of the Atlantic.