The cinder path which led from the Northumberland farmhouse would always symbolise defeat for Charlie MacFell. People saw him as a born loser who always got the dirty end of the stick. At the root of the matter were boyhood humiliations by his brutal father - but was that all there was to Charlie MacFell? Then an opportunity emerges for Charlie to display his inner strengths and integrity and to give the lie to those who had thought him to be of no account. . .