Jen - 1948
Jen plays on the large swing hanging from the old fig tree while thinking of her dead father. She jumps off the swing and climbs up the tree to see a man hammering a sign by a nearby house.Jen's friends Margie and Janey stop by the tree and call for her to come on a trip with them. She agrees and hurriedly runs home to fetch a scarf. While in the backyard, she comes across her aunt Bridie hanging up clothes.
As her mother isn't present, Jen asks Bridie for permission to go out. Bridie guesses that Jen plans to go out to the pictures and reminds her not to spend too much money. Jen's aunt then complains about having to share a room with her sister Kath when she is already twenty eight years old.
Jen turns to her grandfather in desperation, but he too declines. She asks Bridie where her mother is and her aunt bitterly states that the latter is working to make sure Jen gets to eat ice cream. Jen grows tired of hearing her aunt's voice and runs off before she can finish talking.
Jen meets her mother Kath out in the street and gives her a hug, before asking for money to go to the pictures. Kath asks Jen what film she plans to see and Jen replies with 'Abbott and Costello'. Kath tells Jen that she has already seen that one, but Jen admits that she really just wants to catch the latest newsreel about the royal family.
Kath sighs and gives Jen a few coins while making her promise to be home by five. Jen smiles in glee and goes off on her way.
At the theatre, Jen finds herself drawn to the face of Prince Phillip while her two friends giggle in excitement at the news of Prince Charles' birth.After the movie had ended, the three girls approach the owner of the cinema, Mr Mcphail, as he is putting up a poster. They claim that they have left their umbrellas inside and ask him to retrieve them. He impatiently storms back into the theatre room, giving the girls a chance to steal the poster of Prince Phillip.
Mr Mcphail returns and Jen's friends open up their umbrellas just in time to hide the stolen poster, before they run out of the building in laughter.
Jen's laughter fades when she sees a demolition notice nailed outside her place and stops, letting her friends run on ahead. She tears the piece of paper off and goes inside.
Jen marvels at the newly acquired poster and tells her friends that Prince Phillip looks just like her father. The conversation quickly turns into a discussion about 'handsomeness'. Janey sighs while Margie states that being 'nice' is also a good thing for a man to have. Jen reacts in surprise and asks Margie what she means. Margie asks Jen if her father was a nice man and Jen replies that she never really knew him.
Janey and Margie look at Jen in sympathy, and she manages to lighten the mood by commenting that when it comes to men, handsomeness is more important.
