Rocket Man

George Stevenson (Robson Green) is a talented engineer. He first moved to South Wales years ago when there was a Carriage Works in town and he had a good job building trains. But the works shut down and left George and many of his friends out of work.

George and his best friend Barney (Charles Dale) Charles Dale as Barney and Alison Newman as Dianenow work in a chocolate factory, surrounded by women. To add to his problems George's beloved wife Bethan died a year ago, leaving him to bring up their two children, teenager, Angela (15) and Tom (8), all on his own.

George hasn't let his engineering skills rust, and since Bethan's death he's immersed himself in a special project. He dreams of building a rocket in his garden shed. One day he plans to send Bethan's ashes into space, so he and his children can look up at the stars and always see her in the heavens.

It's a project that's popular with Tom, who thinks his dad is fantastic, but Angela sometimes feels that she's the one keeping the family together. George and Tom bond over the rocket, the pair spend hours working on the project. They draw up designs, build models and gaze up at the stars together as they make their plans. But Tom's schoolwork is suffering and George has to face up to the responsibilities of parenthood.

Through it all Barney is at George's side, in the shed which they call Mission Control. It's the one place that they can still practice their engineering skills as the beat metal, weld and construct the rocket. But will they manage to overcome the obstacles of work and family pressures as they hunt down rocket parts in South Wales and try to make their dreams of space come true?