During the 1930s depression in Scotland, Kezzie and her young sister Lucy are orphaned following their father's death in a pit accident. Left to live with their grandfather, they manage to survive on the little work he and Kezzie can find. But life turns sour when Lucy goes missing and is taken up by an adoption agency who send her to Canada. Without hesitation Kezzie sets off to find her little sister, and after a frantic countrywide search discovers Lucy working for an uncaring couple. Having been badly treated, she is weak and seriously ill. Kezzie bravely snatches her young charge back and with the help of a local doctor and his wife nurses her to a full recovery, before making the decision to settle for life in Canada or Scotland.

For Kezzie, the war begins when German planes fire at her cruise liner as she returns home from Canada to Scotland with her young sister Lucy. Once home, she is reunited with the grandfather in the Clydebank before the war starts in earnest. Soon however, the family spirit is put to the test once again. First, she has to save an Italian family from the racial hatred they encounter, then she rescues her old school friend Peg after her home is destroyed in a bombing raid. Tragically as the Clydebank becomes a burning inferno, Kezzie's grandfather is killed and the girls are forced to move to England to live with a family friend Lady Fitzwilliam. Here Kezzie's medical skills are called into action as she works tirelessly in a local field hospital, and is fatefully reunited with her Irish friend Michael who arrives there with severe injuries.