Ironmonger Street in 1920, with its ugly tenement blocks and tumbledown houses, is one of the most unsightly turnings in Bermondsey; its residents are hardened to the grim poverty of their lives. In the slum block, Jubilee Dwellings, two sisters - attractive, fun-loving Kate Morgan and the happily married Helen Bartlett - give birth to daughters. One is illegitimate, her mother refusing to name the father, the other is disabled. Though their mothers can never be close, Connie and Molly grow up together - playing in the gutters, truanting from school, and at fourteen finding jobs despite the recession that ravages the country, Life may be hard, but with all their Cockney humour and courage they enjoy it, too, and wouldn't be parted for the world. Until the day Connie gets a new job at the metal factory, Armitage's, and catches the eye of handsome young Robert Armitage. Despite the differences in their backgrounds, and the antagonism that dogs their two families, they are drawn together and are determined to be married. Until war intervenes ...