Aunt Babsey considered herself a cut above her neighbours on Everton Ridge. For one thing she was 'trade' - she ran a greengrocery shop in public, and a money-lending business in private. She taught her children to be respectable, keep up appearances, and not to mix with people like the Crowleys who were both Catholic and Irish. She ruled her family with a rod of iron. Fourteen-year-old Louisa was the only one who didn't quite fit into the family scheme of things. Louisa, with her mother dead and her father away at sea, was becoming increasingly conscious that while Aunt Babsey's family was comfortable enough, all around them was hardship and the grinding poverty of the thirties. As she grew up into a graceful and gentle young woman, so the tough conditions of Liverpool began to impinge on her life - love, war, betrayal, death - all made her determined to seek her own path, both in the man she loved, and the work she wanted to do - work which would eventually make her famous throughout her city as Liverpool Lou.