Peter "Tucker" Jenkins is a working-class youth living in a council estate in London in the mid-1980s. Tucker recently graduated from secondary school (see Grange Hill), which gave him a so-called comprehensive education but no real job skills. Furthermore, he lacks the academic qualifications to go further in his schooling or land a good job. So, like thousands of other young people at the time, he's unemployed and on the dole. The stories in Tucker's Luck revolve around Tucker Jenkins and two friends from school, Alan Humphries and Tommy Watson, and their attempts to get by, day by day, eager for work but always short of money and qualifications.