When country doctor's daughter Diana Poultney becomes pregnant by haulier's son Bradley Armstrong, she marries him against the wishes of her parents, who feels she has ruined her life. Cut off by her family and friends, a defiant Diana devotes herself to being a good wife to Bradley and an adoring mother to their baby son. Though life is hard in the remote Weardale cottage they have restored as their home, they are happy together. But when tragedy strikes, their lives fall apart. Then the coming of the Second World War offers her a way out. Bradley joins the army and his father, short of men...

'I've bought up the business, all of it. From this morning.' Diana Armstrong's announcement in the spring of 1963 stuns her daughter Carol and overthrows all her preconceptions about what life has to offer, for both of them. But first Carol has to overcome her anger against her recently widowed mother, and her complicated feelings for her dead father. Then there is feckless husband Kenny and their expected child... But her love for the family business in which she grew up wins her over. Together, two women in a man's world, mother and daughter work to build up the crumbling haulage business...