South London, 1932. Times are hard for ten-year old Lizzie Collins and her family. With her father dead, it is up to her mother, grandmother and aunt to scrimp and save to rear Lizzie and her three siblings. But the whole family is blessed with the indomitable Cockney spirit - and in particular the physically frail but strong-willed and intelligent Lizzie.

So it is only her strong instinct for survival that sees Lizzie through the snobbish school to which she wins a scholarship, through the life-threatening horrors of consumption, and through the dark clouds of impending war. After school and a stint as a butcher's clerk, she goes to work as a bus conductress and, through hard work and inheritance, manages to save enough to invest in a property. And then fortune smiles on her in the game of love.

Happily married after the war to Charlie Wilson, she relishes the prospect of a now secure future with her family. But Charlie has other ideas. Ideas that will take Lizzie to a lonely life in Devon, to the challenges of a new career, and away from her beloved London.