So Well Remembered

On VE Day, George Boswell (Sir John Mills), the Mayor of Browdley, Lancashire, a small English industrial town, recollects to himself the past quarter century that shaped his personal and in turn his professional life, with his friend, Dr. Richard Whiteside (Trevor Howard), an alcoholic, at his side through most of it. These major events began in 1919 when George was a city councilor and newspaper editor. He then formally met Olivia Channing (Martha Scott), who would become his wife. He felt that she was being unfairly persecuted by the townsfolk for crimes committed by her father, John Channing (Frederick Leister), the owner of a textile mill. Those crimes, for which he spent twenty years in prison, caused much of the poverty in the town, manifested by the overcrowded housing and unsanitary conditions for which George has always rallied against as a politician. Throughout their marriage, they each have political ambitions for George, which includes a run as a Member of Parliament for Browdley, but have differing motivations for that ambition which destroys their marriage. It isn't until George learns the reason for a tragic event prior to their marriage that he fully understands what he has to do to make life better for the next generation in Browdley, especially for early twenty-somethings Julie Morgan (Patricia Roc) and Charles Winslow (Richard Carlson).