When a beautiful blonde girl is found half-drowned on a beach, she has no memory of who she is or what horrors have left her there. But an article about her in a Brighton newspaper rings alarm bells for beautician Dale, who shows the police photographs of Lotte Wainright.

On Friday nights a group of six different and disparate women meet. They range in age from Jules, who is 22 and wants to be a DJ, to Eleanor, who is a retired professional and walks with a stick. When one of them meets a man the whole dynamic changes. The bonds that have been so closely forged are tested - and some will break.

Dulcie Mainwaring is always helping others, but never looks out for herself. Her friend Viola is besotted by Dr Aylwin Forbes, so surely it isn't prying if Dulcie helps things along? Aylwin, however, is smitten by Dulcie's young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself, however ridiculous it may be, is falling, just a little, for Aylwin.

It's not always easy living in a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone else's business. Growing up in a quiet West Country village, butcher's daughter Rebecca Peterson and her best friend Cindy Mason are keen to expand their horizons and see more of the world. On leaving school, Rebecca heads off to university in Cardiff, while Cindy gets a job at the new local supermarket - but dreams of becoming a model or actress. The two friends promise...

As the needles clack, and the garments grow, the conversation moves on from patterns and yarn to life, love and everything. The women in the Friday Night Knitting Club are of different ages, but they are drawn together by threads of affection that prove as durable as the sweaters they knit.

Through 20 years of friendship Aisling & Elizabeth's paths will cross & re-cross. As they face their loves, their marriages & their disappointments, they realise that not all problems will be solved, nor all wishes granted by lighting a penny candle.

Freda and Brenda spend their days working in an Italian-run wine bottling factory and their nights in a dismal bedsit. Little wonder, then, that the works outing offers such promise to Freda, and such terror for Brenda.

At the time of his death, the poet Von Humboldt Fleischer is a failure, and his friend Charlie Citrine's life has hit rock bottom. Then Humboldt acts from beyond the grave, bestowing upon Charlie a legacy that might turn his life round.

Christine Winters & Sienna Sheik were best friends at school but with their different backgrounds the two friends soon grew apart. It seemed that their paths were never to cross again. Little did Chris know that Sienna's wedding day would turn her life upside down.

Becky has a loving family, but Ella's father died in the war and left his family in poverty. The two girls begin work at the age of 14, and remain friends during the heady years of the 1920's. Then Ella's mother dies and she marries a sensible older man.