S1, E1: John West, retrenched from his job in a Carringbush boot factory, lives in poverty with his widowed mother. Falsely arrested as an accomplice in a petty theft, and humiliated in his mothers home, West vows revenge. With the help of his friends, Sugar, Barney and Paddy, he decides to 'fix' pigeon races and run a book on them in the pubs in and around Carringbush.