Diverting slightly from his father's trade as a market seller of whatever goods he can come across, Charlie has found himself enamoured with English pottery - Wedgwood in particular - and boy, does he rue himself for it!

Forever chasing a seemingly diminishing market, his bank manager is on his back, his wife feels their home is more like a warehouse, and trade at his shop is slow. However, he cannot shake his love for the craft, which began by chance on a visit to the British Museum as a boy, where a particular Portland vase caught him spellbound, and now sees him forever in hope of finding a similar specimen. Stolen from an aristocratic collection almost a century ago, he keeps a picture of the near-mythical missing green Portland vase in his wallet, longing that one day he might come across it - not to sell, just to keep, and to look upon, as a thing of utter beauty.

Now an adult with a son of his own, a chance tip-off of an old country house being stripped and sold-off - said to include a fine, panelled Wedgwood room - looks set to lead Charlie on a merry dance of his own. Travelling to visit the largely abandoned pile, he meets the flighty, hard-up niece of its last resident, Sir John, where she cares for the supposedly wicked old man - now aged 90 - in a small cottage on what was once the grand family estate. As she attempts to sell him his pick of the remaining trinkets from around the small home, a few small porcelain statuettes catch Charlie's eye ... might the fabled vase be right under his nose?