Beryl Matthews

London, 1899. As she prepares for a glittering ball, 20-year-old Gertrude Melrose considers her good fortune. Attractive, intelligent, with a loving family, her only concern is her brother, Edward....

Amy Carter is just 14 when she leaves school to look after her sick mother....

Angie adopts her deceased sister's son, but is torn between a desire to trace his father and her fear of losing him to an unknown man....

After a traumatic past, life finally seems to be looking up for Hanna Foster. But war is on its way....

1919, London's East End. Robert Hunter is eagerly awaiting the return of his father from the war....

As World War II breaks out, four friends from London’s East End consider the changes that war will mean for all of them....

October 1943. Nancy Dalton, working at the RAF base at Scampton in Lincolnshire, has been holding vigil for the Lancaster bomber pilots whose missions seem endless. But her watchfulness has not prevented her own pilot brother from failing to return....

London, 1940. The war is raging across Europe, and 23-year-old Grace is devastated by the loss of her husband, Brian, at Dunkirk after only a year of marriage....

The Bentley children are used to fending for themselves. Their mother has taken a night job and sees them only at breakfast. Then one morning their mother fails to appear for breakfast....

Eugenie Winford is devastated when her beloved father commits suicide, having lost his fortune in the Wall Street Crash....

Queenie Bonner is only two when she is taken from her large family in the slums to a big house in the country....Albert and Mary Warrender rename her Eleanor, bringing her up as their own....

When the Second World War breaks out, Annie Webster and her close-knit family find themselves, along with everyone else, thrust into a world of uncertainty, danger, and despair....

All her short life, 11-year-old Rose Webster has encountered closed doors....

London, 1912. Identical twins Lester and Lillia Holdsworth are destined for the stage. Lester is a brilliant pianist, Lillia a magnificent opera singer. But their father has other ideas....

London 1941. Sirens warn of danger as German bomber planes approach the city. Ever cautious, Kathy and her mother head immediately for the nearest public air raid shelter, and when the building is destroyed in a direct hit, it is a miracle Kathy survives....

Christine Banner is alone after her father's death. Determined to make her own way in the world, she stumbles onto an estate in the New Forest where she finds work that she loves....

London, 1920. When 14-year-old Victoria Keats is thrown out of her home by her violent father, it seems likely she will starve until two strangers provide her with no-strings-attached help....

Britain is at war and Ruth, a gifted pilot, is determined to join the Air Transport Auxiliary. Over in America, Jack and Lucy Nelson, are also keen to join....

As if everyday life in London's slums wasn't hard enough for Jane Roberts and her three children, the day that ne'er-do-well husband Bert walks out on his family as rent day draws near is a particularly dark time....

In 1960, Kate Freeman, daughter of the inimitable Rose Webster, goes to London to follow her dream of becoming a photographer....