Annie Jackson's carefree life changes in postwar Leeds when her widowed mother, Olga, marries Leonard Spode, a local businessman with political ambitions. To the outside world, he is a loving family man but behind closed doors he is violent and abusive.
The only life Dove McKenna has ever known has been one of the open road. She lives with her parents and her brother in a show wagon, travelling from town to town, performing for people who are happy to pay them, but who dismiss them as thieves behind their backs.
Hope Street may be just an ordinary terraced street in Leeds, where everyone knows their neighbour's business, but it's the whole world to Maggie Fish. When her father returns home from the war the family looks forward to happier times.