A second-generation Welsh man working in a geriatric unit has never lived in Wales, but he is visiting to attend a funeral. His father recently moved back to his old Welsh hometown, living alone in a ramshackle cottage which he refuses to let his son fix up anytime he visits. Next to his father’s property stands a dilapidated tower named ‘The Ugliest House in The World,’ built during a government land incentive program and converted into a tourist attraction. Kate, the daughter of the property owner, had once been involved with the man, and now worked as a hairdresser while raising her six-year-old son Gareth alone. Gareth and the man’s father love to play together – they play bumbling soccer games (Gareth is a die-hard Liverpool fan) and the father teaches Gareth how to catch trout using hands alone, a particular obsession of his. But while Gareth was waiting for the father to come home and play one day, he swung on the father’s broken stone gate and the whole thing toppled, crushing him to death.

The man’s father has been standing by the stream every day during the son’s visit, fruitlessly attempting to catch trout like he used to. During Gareth’s funeral, two men slide in on either side of them and refuse to let them up to the coffin to pay respects. The father made this happen, they shout; the son should take him on back to England. The son entreats his father to come back with him, fearing the town’s hostility, but the father is resolute. He _is _responsible, he says plainly despite his son’s protests. Kate comes over later to see him and tells the son they’re all responsible, they all had a role, and he again insists no one can take the blame for the accident. The two of them follow the father down to the stream and help him build a dam in the ice-cold water, trying desperately to catch a fish. The son drives away with him the next morning, but not before whitewashing the graffiti that appeared on the cottage overnight.