The O'Neils keep watch over their one remaining young son, Seamus. Hardworking and good-hearted, they cling together and help not just each other, but a community of dock workers. Meanwhile, Rosh Allen mourns the loss of Phil, her husband. Aided and impeded by her mother, she struggles to raise three children.

It is the day of the Grand National, 1933, when Susie Ingram's fiance, Danny, is killed in a tragic accident. In a cruel twist of fate, Susie discovers she is carrying Danny's child and, shunned by his parents, she turns to her mother for support. Louise Ingram, widowed during the First World War, knows how hard it is to bring up a family alone, but with the help of her eldest daughter, Martha, who lives next door, they manage to survive. When little...

1907 - Liverpool is a bustling and busy city. Sisters Livvie and Amy Goodwin are just sixteen and thirteen years old when their adored mother dies in childbirth. They are still missing their mum every day when their father Thomas announces that he is going to marry again. His new bride is Mary Fitzgerald, a girl just a few years older than Livvie, and only time will tell whether Mary will be the kind of step-mother a motherless girl could love.

1946: The war might be over but for the Gilby family there are still battles to be fought at home. For Birmingham and the Gilby family the war years have been a time of great change. With husband, Len, having left her for another woman, Ann Gilby is finally free to follow her heart. While the neighbours may be scandalised by having a divorcee in their midst, Ann is determined to rise above the local gossip and make a happy home with her former sweetheart,...

1945: The war in Europe is over, and most women can't wait for their men to return. But in the small town of Rivenshaw in Lancashire, Judith Crossley fears having her husband back in the house. Before Doug left for the war, he'd become a bully and a drunkard, and on the few occasions he'd come home on leave, he'd hit her and the children. Judith has found an unlikely ally in Maynard, only son of the aristocratic Esher family - but she knows that when...

In the New Year of 1936, Gwen Purdy leaves her home to become a schoolteacher in a poor area of Birmingham. She soon begins to understand the appalling hardships endured by the children and falls for local Daniel. But she has to face the fact that Daniel has secrets in his life that she would rather not face up to.

Liverpool, 1901. The Tempest family is all but destitute, barely able to put food on the table. When Florrie falls ill with pneumonia and Arthur is imprisoned after a drunken fight, their thirteen-year-old daughter Lizzie finds herself parentless, desperate and alone. Despite her young age, Lizzie has spirit and determination, and she knows that she must find work to keep herself off the streets. In a stroke of luck, she gets a job in the match factory,...

12-year-old Eliza has grown accustomed to a life of penury and servitude, her only comfort - the love and protection of her brother, Bart. One day, Bart accidentally kills a man and is forced to flee to New Zealand. Alone and at the mercy of her cruel uncle, Eliza realises that her very survival is at stake.

Frank Rossi promised Matty the world. The Cockney Canary would become a world famous movie star. As his wife, she would be one half of a power couple, feted and adored by all. But the Wall Street crash puts paid to that and as Frank becomes more violent and unstable, Matty knows she must escape and so she flees at dead of night. Once home in Bermondsey, she goes into hiding and starts desperately looking for work. But only the hated biscuit factory...

Lancashire, 1932. Widower Harry Makepeace lives in Manchester with his sickly daughter Cathie, scrimping and saving to get by. But after she suffers a violent asthma attack, the doctors say she must move to the fresh air of the countryside. When Harry chances upon a patch of land for sale in Ellindale, and an advert for a disused railway carriage that can be made into a home, he snaps both up quickly. Harry swiftly becomes part of the community in...