Mild-mannered pensioner Harold Fry (Jim Broadbent) takes a stroll to the postbox one bright Devon morning. But for some reason he can’t bring himself to post the letter. It’s just a few stunted lines on headed notepaper, a reply to his old friend and former work colleague Queenie (Linda Bassett), who, he learned recently, has terminal cancer. Then a chance encounter in a petrol station gives Harold a new purpose: he decides to walk from Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed, where Queenie is receiving palliative care in a hospice.