Spring and Port Wine
Spring and Port Wine is a social drama which is written by Bill Naughton. Rafe changes from a
bully to a more caring father during the course of the play.
The timeline for the play is only a few days as the story takes place over a weekend. The family is
working class and is also very traditional. The story takes place as the family prepare for a sit down
meal. Everybody waits for Rafe to come home from work as he seen as the head of house they do
not start without him. The mother os the family, Daisy, prepares herring for dinner but Hilda who is
one of their daughters refuses to eat it. It then becomes a battle of wills and Rafe is then determined
to produce it at every meal until it is eaten. This then goes on for days.
As the play unfolds, we discover as the reader why Rafe behaves the way he does. When Rafe was
younger, his mother got thrown out of the family home due to his father not producing his mother with
sufficent money as he was a drunk. The play concludes are Rafe takes on board each one of his
childrens circumstances.
Rafe is the main character in Spring and Port Wine. He's the father of four children, Florence, Harold,
Hilda and Wilfred. Daisy is married to Rafe, so she therefore is the mother to all four children. Rafe
is aged about 50 and he is an extremely traditional father and quite strict. He is described as "a man
very much himself" and "quietly sure of himself". While he is not overly stern or overbearing with his wife
and children, his are the standards by which the family still live by. He does not explicitly impose these
standards, but he makes no secret of them.
Rafe's motivation towards his family rules are very heavily based on his own background. When Rafe
was younger his mother did not deal with the housekeeping sufficiently. His father was a drunk. The family
rules were also based on the bible. During the play the bible is mentioned a few times such as "oh you swear
on the...