Combe Tollbridge, on the Exmoor coast, is a quiet fishing village always happy to welcome visitors for the sake of the local economy, but when an irritating journalist looks like staying overtime, a dine-and-dash couple plays tricks in the neighbourhood, and a family with more than one secret to hide features in the national news, the mixed blessing that is tourism becomes all too clear.

Meanwhile Professor Tolliday visits the coastal village for the first time in fifty years with his family. The once irresponsible student has come back to make belated amends, but it is his mischievous little granddaughter whose holiday fun causes the most trouble for the village.