Liza Kemp is an 18-year-old factory worker and the youngest of a large family, now living alone with her aging mother. Very popular with all the residents of Vere Street, Lambeth, Liza rejects Tom, a boy her age, and begins an affair Jim Blakeston, a 40-year-old father of five children. They never appear together in public because they do not want the other residents of Vere Street or their workmates to start talking about them, but to Liza's dismay, people do start talking about them despite their precautions. When Jim's wife confronts and attacks Liza she gets publically stigmatize. Her struggles continue when she realizes she might be pregnant.