Sonny Gee is six years old when his mother abandons him. He is taken in by his grandfather, Joe, a man he hardly knows, a former miner, grim and taciturn. Forced together and immediately locked in conflict, an inarticulate tenderness develops between the old man and the boy. For both of them, however, this new relationship is increasingly threatened by forces from the past.Set in Gateshead over the course of a spring, with humour and poignancy The Bonny Lad celebrates the redemptive power of love without flinching from counting its cost.