When the General Strike leaves the miners in South Wales with no work, a family of five converts their small front room into a grocery shop which quickly takes over their lives. When their father passes, it falls to older sister Edith to run the shop, while her younger sisters, Alice and Doll, must get jobs in service in London with Lord and Lady Sutherburt. There they meet the men who come to have significant roles in their lives. As the years pass, the world changes, and the sisters must learn to cope with love and loss through times of poverty, war, disaster and upheaval. Will the class divisions that present them with difficult bridges to cross ever weaken?