The sleepy English hamlet of Little Wallop is about to receive a rude awakening, as the absent-minded Reverend Walter Goodman, his dissatisfied wife Gloria, and their two children, Holly and Petey, await the arrival of their new housekeeper, Grace Hawkins. Gloria is a woman struggling to cope. Her teenage daughter's a nymphomaniac, her young son's the perennial target for the local bullies, and her marriage to Walter has long-since dwindled into monotony. It's no wonder she's failing to resist the advances of her handsome, American, lothario of a golf pro, Lance. What this family needs is salvation. And fast. It comes in the form of "Grace Hawkins", a gentle motherly woman with a smile for everyone and an answer for everything. But Grace is not all she seems...