A legal battle ensues, and the court awards custody of Jimmy to Lily due to the lack of any formal adoption agreement. Lily visits the Normans to reclaim Jimmy, now that she has the resources to take care of him, but the Normans refuse to give him up since Lily has not been part of Jimmy's life and he does not know he is not the Normans' natural child. The Normans do not tell Jimmy he is adopted and he regards them as his parents.Įight years pass, during which time Lily rises to the level of manager at the department store and falls in love with a kind shopkeeper, Bill Collins (Bill Owen), who marries her and is willing to accept Jimmy as his own. Lily eventually gives up on staying in touch with the Normans and drops out of Jimmy's life, although she misses him. Seeing that Jimmy is happy and is receiving better food and care than she was able to manage, Lily agrees to let the Normans raise Jimmy, although she refuses to sign any legal document formally allowing them to adopt Jimmy. When Lily recovers, she visits Jimmy at the Normans' comfortable home. When Lily, under stress from her demanding schedule, becomes ill with flu, Frances persuades Lily to let her and her husband look after Jimmy temporarily. Frances Norman (Rosamund John), a middle-class married woman who works at the day nursery to be around children after losing her own baby, is drawn to Jimmy.

Each day Lily leaves Jimmy at a day nursery while she works as a shopgirl at a department store, and then cares for Jimmy herself at night. After learning that her husband is a bigamist who already had a wife, new mother Lily Gardner (Patricia Roc) resolves to raise her baby, Jimmy, on her own under her maiden name of Lily Bates rather than give him up for adoption.

When the bough breaks movie 1947