Life is grim in the Staffordshire colliery town for Marigold and her sisters, and when she has the chance to go into service in Oxford, she welcomes it. She falls in love with the wealthy Richard Endersby, but their happiness is destroyed when the Great War separates them.
Three girls dance their way onto the 1920s music-hall stages. Nell is fleeing her brutal father in the slums of Ladywood, Gwyneth has escaped from the narrow-minded Welsh preacher, and Kitty is bored with the propriety of her upper-class home in Edgbaston.
Josie rejects marriage as a way of rescuing her and her mother from the debts left by her stepfather. It's the 1930s and she wants a career. She persuades her step-brother to employ her in his Birmingham jewellery factory, and is introduced to the Monte Carlo dream.
Rosa and her sister Celia aspire to acting careers. Rosa is attracted to American, Max, and Celia is encouraged by the actor Gilbert to run away to London and audition. Furious, her father forbids Rosa to contemplate more acting. Can any of them achieve their hearts' desires?
Kate wins a scholarship to a prestigious Edgbaston school and meets wealthy people. Robert offers her a ride in his motor car, and to take her flying. Kate's heroine is Amy Johnson and she is ecstatic. But then disasters strike. Will her dream of flying ever come true?
