The History of Mr. Polly 1949

Alfred Polly, John Mills, is dismissed from a draper’s shop where his father had placed him as an apprentice, and he struggles to find another position. When a telegram arrives informing him of his father’s death, he returns to the family home with a mix of resolve and hesitation, weighing what the future might hold for him and those who depend on him. With a modest bequest of £500, Polly contemplates his options, and a trusted older friend of his father, Mr Johnsen, urges him to invest in a shop—a path Polly recoils from, preferring to carve his own, less conventional route.

While wandering the countryside on a newly bought bicycle, Polly has a brief dalliance with a schoolgirl, Christabel, played with a spark by Sally Ann Howes; but the momentum of life pulls him toward family duty, and he eventually marries Miriam Larkins Betty Ann Davies, one of his cousins. Fifteen years pass, and Polly and his wife operate a draper’s shop in Fishbourne, yet the marriage has fallen into constant arguing and petty squabbles that sap their happiness and cloud their days with friction and fatigue.

Overwhelmed by despair, Polly walks the country lanes with a heavy heart and contemplates ending it all; he sets his shop on fire in a misguided bid to secure insurance that would supposedly guarantee Miriam’s prosperity. The plan backfires in a dramatic way: instead of ending his life, Polly survives the blaze and, to the surprise of the village, emerges as a minor local celebrity after he selflessly saves an elderly neighbour from the flames.

Still unsettled, Polly leaves his wife and takes a job with a rural innkeeper as handyman and ferryman. The position exists largely because the innkeeper’s brother-in-law Jim, a bully with a penchant for drunken bravado, makes life difficult for any other worker. Polly clashes with Jim until a fateful turn of events—Jim drowns accidentally in a weir while pursuing Polly—shifts the balance of power and leaves Polly to navigate the quiet, hobby-filled days at the inn with a new sense of purpose.

Three years later, Polly returns to Fishbourne to discover Miriam running a tea-shop with her sister, under the assumption that Polly has drowned. This mistaken belief ushers in a chance at a more tranquil life, and he finds a renewed sense of happiness by the side of the inn, where the stubborn, hard-won peace of his new routine begins to feel right again.