Tom Crick, fifty-two years old, has been history master for some thirty years in a secondary school in Greenwich. As the world sets its clocks according to Greenwich Mean Time, this is a place where time begins. Tom has been married to Mary for as long as he has been teaching, but the couple have no children. The students in Tom's school have grown increasingly scientifically oriented, and the headmaster, a physicist, has little sympathy for Tom's subject. One of Tom's students, Price, questions the relevance of learning about historical events. The youth's scepticism causes Tom to change his teaching approach to telling tales drawn from his own recollection.