The Smith and Jones families of Fern Road are neighbours and have been close friends for years. Then a series of mishaps, wrongful accusations and misunderstandings start a feud between the two families. The feud snowballs until it becomes a battle. Only the youngest family members, Susie Smith and Jenny Jones, remain friends, and are appalled at the feud.
Orphan Penny Fairchild lives with her stern, cold grandmother Agnes Fairchild at the Fairchilds’ ancestral home, Middleton Manor. She feels out of place at school because of the clothes grandmother makes her wear and grandmother not allowing her friends over, but finds solace in her teacher Miss Jackson. Penny finds further solace in the puppets she finds in the attic and starts playing with, but this is going against grandmother, who has forbidden her to go to the attic.
Then Miss Jackson tells Penny that the trouble is about a family feud. The feud has something to do with the puppets, which are linked to Roland, the world’s greatest puppeteer and ventriloquist, and a singer called Rose Rossay. They start to investigate the mystery together.
Sarah Smith gets her first date with a boy called William. Too late she discovers that he is Billy Benson, who is a bitter rival of her brother Andrew, and she starts dating Billy in secret.
Jenny Cooper’s mother makes up with her sister after a falling out years before, and she and Jenny go to stay with the aunt while Mr Cooper goes abroad. But the cousin, Rachel Fairweather, is going astray and getting in with a rough crowd, and Jenny is getting the blame for the trouble she causes. But Mum is anxious to keep the peace, having only just made up with her sister, and this is making it more difficult for Jenny to speak out.
Best friends Sharon Dawson and Emma Foxley live next door to each other in cottages that have been in their families for generations. One day, Sharon and her father unearth a stone from an old wishing well that is inscribed with the words “Foxleys Beware”. Soon after the discovery, the families start feuding. When Sharon and Emma investigate, they theorise the stone is linked to a curse that a Dawson put on the Foxleys in the 18th century for wrongly accusing her of witchcraft. This started a feud between the Foxleys and the Dawsons, and now the curse and feud have returned with the stone.
Carrie’s parents are always arguing over nothing. To solve the problem they divide the family home, with Dad and oldest daughter Sheila living downstairs and Mum and younger sister Sarah upstairs. Carrie refuses to take sides, so she moves to the landing room, which is halfway between the two floors.
After her parents die, Jenny Weston goes to live with her Aunt Edna and Uncle Harry. On the grounds is a large island in the middle of a lake, and Jenny is forbidden to visit it. When she does so anyway, she finds her Aunt Edna’s sister Josie and her daughter Caroline are living in a run-down cottage on the island to fulfil the conditions of a will. Edna and Josie have fallen out because of a family feud, and Jenny wonders if she can get them back together.
Karen Kemp’s grandmothers live on either side of her. The grans have very different ideas about things and this causes a lot of arguing, with the Kemps caught in the middle.
Other Appearances
Jill Marsden goes to live with her aunts May and Jessie while her parents are away and finds herself in the middle of a battlefield. The aunts have fallen out over something they can’t even remember, but each blames the other for it. Their feud has become so intense that they have divided the house between them with white lines, right down to the dining table. Even their dogs join in the feud, and the whole district is suffering because of the aunts’ quarrel. Jill is trying to find a way to make the aunts see reason but her efforts always seem to go wrong and make their squabbling worse.
Matters come to a head when a film crew comes to the village. The aunts’ quarrelling spoils the shoot and the film crew leaves in disgust. As each aunt blames the other for it and another quarrel erupts, Jill loses her temper and shouts at them both over their stupid quarrelling. She tells them she is fed up with it, they are both to blame for spoiling the shoot, they are as bad as each other, and whatever started the feud should have been over years ago. She then gets so upset she runs off and gets hit by a car.
When Jill regains consciousness in hospital she discovers that the scolding and her accident have shocked her aunts into stopping their feud. They are now at peace and have removed the dividing lines in their house.
The Carters and Simpsons have been bitter enemies since the day they became neighbours. Only the daughters, Polly Carter and Janet Simpson, are friends. The families get more friendly when Polly and Janet are chosen as queens for Carnival Week, but things are not going smoothly.
