Moving Pictures

London, 1939. War is looming as the Director of the National Gallery faces a dilemma of such proportions that his usually calm demeanour threatens to leave him. Mr Clark's work has also been his passion but now, through no fault of his own, he must face his staff to inform them of the calamity that is about to befall them. Several dozen staff stand before him in silence as they hear from their respected Director that the very paintings they all love and admire must be taken away for an indeterminate period of time and hidden in a place of safe keeping.

Mr Clark, along with his ever-efficient deputy Rawlins and his faithful secretary Miss Hughes, watch with apprehension as the paintings are removed from the walls and placed in wooden crates in readiness for their secret journey.

A small village in north west Wales is the chosen location and, under Churchill's instructions, their new home is to be deep under ground - buried in a slate mine. A curious destination but a location upon which the Government has insisted - and a place Rawlins must visit immediately.

The story tells of the chance discovery of this secret hoard of paintings and how a young man's obsession with one particularly raunchy Rembrandt leads to near catastrophe when, during a torrential rainstorm, the mine is accidentally allowed to flood. But the villagers put aside their local squabbles and pull together to rescue the pictures, hanging them up around the pub and in their houses, only to find that their lives - and in particular their love lives - are transformed by a new appreciation of such spectacular works of art they would probably never have otherwise encountered.