Plot

The life and times of the parents of the hailed British graphic novelist Raymond Briggs.

In 1928 London, milkman Ernest Briggs courts and marries housemaid Ethel; their son Raymond is born in 1934. When World War II breaks out Ethel tearfully allows him to be evacuated to aunts in Dorset while Ernest joins the fire service, shocked by the carnage he sees. As hostilities end they celebrate Raymond's return and entry to grammar school, and the birth of the welfare state though Ethel is mistrustful of socialism and progress in general. Raymond himself progresses from National Service to art college and a teaching post, worrying his mother by marrying schizophrenic Jean. Father and son console each other as Ethel slips away, but before long Raymond is mourning his father too, though both Ethel and Ernest will forever be immortalized by Raymond's touching account of their lives.—don @ minifie-1

Faithful especially to the tone of his source graphic novel, Raymond Briggs, as an homage to and affection for them, tells the story of the relationship between his parents, Ethel and Ernest Briggs, from the first moment they spotted each other in London in 1928, to their passings in 1971. That initial sighting was as Ernest bicycled his way to work as a milkman one morning and passed by the home where Ethel worked as a maid, each being sure, if they could, to be in sight of the other at that exact same time on subsequent mornings, each disappointed if they ever had to miss a day. She is ever the traditionalist and biggest fan of Victor McLaglen, and he supports the rights of the working man; Ethel and Ernest are presented as they deal with life around them, including their courtship and needing to set up their life as husband and wife, why Raymond was their only child though they both wanted a large family, the effects of WWII, Raymond reaching the age of conscription in the early 1950s where the Cold War was just setting in, Ethel and Ernest's pride in Raymond despite his path to a non-traditional career, the effect of the 1960s counter-culture on the relationship between parents and son, Raymond's own challenge-fraught marriage, and first Ethel's health problems and passing and then Ernest's not long afterward. Their collective story is always centered on love and the priority of family.—Huggo