World War II may be over but Polly Pride feels as though the fighting has moved to her own home. Her son, Benny, is mixed up with some very shady characters and trying to pull the wool over his mother's eyes about it. Daughter Lucy is carrying on with a fancy man behind her husband's back and leaving her children to run riot. And Charlie, Polly's beloved husband, is battling ill health and doesn't want her interfering.

Polly sees she risks losing all she's worked so hard to achieve, but refuses to go back to Ancoats and a life of grinding poverty. And she won't stand by and watch her family tear itself to pieces.