Ex-chorus girl Rita Aanson tires of stage life and finds a new career - and romance - in the second-hand furniture trade in the Sydney suburb of Paddington. There's plenty of humour as Rita struggles to learn the tricks of the trade and does battle with the gin-soaked Mrs Dibble, all the time supported by Peter Bodfish, an eccentric yet inspired furniture restorer and her staunch friend Dr. Grimsby. Lindsay was fascinated by Paddington's lanes, tenements, old shops selling curious treasures (or junk!) and its people who never observed the rules of the more respectable suburbs.