Theda Wearmouth is named after her mother's favourite silent movie star but that is the last vestige of glamour to touch her life. The thirties are lean years for a miner's family dependent on the Durham coalmines. Theda is determined to become a nurse as a means of escape; and, against the odds, manages to gain a nursing place at Newcastle Hospital. By the time war breaks out, she is newly qualified and working in a children's ward, a job she adores. So also finds herself being courted by a young soldier. Only Theda's dreams of becoming Mrs Alan Price are shattered when he is killed in action before he can make good on his promise to marry her. Broken-hearted, Theda finds herself re-assigned to a special unit of the hospital dealing with German prisoners of war. Her duty is clear. But will she be able to cope with nursing the very men her fiance died fighting?