Thrown into the workhouse at the tender age of six, Hannah Peckham soon learns how hard the world is, but she emerges determined to make the most of what little life has given her. But the deprivations of workhouse life have left her ill-prepared to fulfil her new position in a prosperous Liverpool household. Naively she falls in love with a man she can never have. And when her illusions are finally shattered, she rushes into the arms of hard-drinking Alfie Duggan and a violent, poverty-stricken marriage from which there seems no escape - without unthinkable consequences...