Teenage sisters Faith and Zoe Hodge want very different things from life. Faith longs for a career and dreams of the day when she will run her own hairdressing salon in London's West End. Zoe, on the other hand, is much more homely - marriage, babies and a semi-detached house in Ealing are what she aspires to. But their dreams are shattered when the Coronation Day celebrations of 1953 end in disaster...

As time goes by the sisters find themselves growing further apart. Faith, still scarred by the past, cannot commit herself to a relationship, and Zoe, caught up in her own dramas, resents the bond that has developed between Faith and her daughter Sally. It takes another twist of fate many years later for them to be reunited and to learn that love and understanding can be shared in many different ways...