In the years between the wars, Edith May Faulks from the Rhondda Valley in Wales goes into service in the London home of Lord and Lady Havis, leaving behind her brothers and sisters and her old way of life. There she meets and falls in love with Peter. But he is sent away to New York, where he mysteriously disappears and Edith is forced to move on. Eventually marrying and settling on the Dorset coast, Edith has to raise her children on her own while her husband, Leslie, is away at war, and their lives are played out against a backdrop of air raids, ration books and shortages of food and clothing. Despite all their privations and difficulties, they get by. But the return of a ghost from Edith's past threatens to disrupt the life she has tried so hard to provide for herself and her family...