Quarry Lane is the lane in which John meets his future girlfriend Vivienne. Their relationship, like the flowers of the lane, blossoms and they look forward to a future of promises. But they reckon without the implications of a mining disaster which leaves John's father crippled; he is also distraught, as he believes he has been the cause of the accident. The family begins to experience financial difficulties, with the result that John has to leave school and find work before he can complete his sixth form education. This spoils his chances of gaining the place at university that he is so keen to achieve. The repercussions are also significant for John's relationship with Vivienne. Her mother, the wife of a bank manager, is strongly opposed to her daughter associating with a miner's son. She is devastated by the news that her daughter's boyfriend has had to take a job in the local mine and seemingly committed himself to a life in the red brick rows of a mining village. Determined to break up John and Vivienne's relationship, she persuades her husband to send Vivienne abroad to a finishing school. The story explores sensitively the tough life of a Yorkshire mining family in the 1950s and how John strives to fulfil his responsibilities to his family. At the same time he seeks to overcome the opposition of Vivienne's mother to his relationship with her daughter.