The Meadow Girls

Anny Woodvine's family has worked at the ironworks for as long as she can remember. The brightest child in her road and the first in her family to learn to read, Anny has big dreams. The moment she is asked to run messages to the big house, she's ready to grab the opportunity with both hands. Margaret King, only daughter of the King family, is surrounded by privilege and wealth. But behind closed doors all is not what it seems. When Anny arrives, Margaret finds her first ally and friend. Together they plan to change their lives. 

At the heart of Dover's Market Square lies the Castle's Café. A bustling, homely place run by the formidable Nellie Castle and her six children. Since the scandalous birth of her beloved son 10 years before, Marianne, Nellie's eldest daughter, has preferred to stay in the kitchen, hidden away from the town gossips. Overcome with shame, Marianne has never revealed the name of Donny's father - not even to her own mother. But with World War II just around the corner, Marianne's past catches up with her. And suddenly the lives of the Castle family become a lot more complicated.

1850: Beatrix Fawcett is just 18 when her father tells her she is to marry a stranger. Hesitant, but with little choice, she agrees to the match - with hope for a good husband in Charles, and the surprising delight of a lovely Yorkshire house in which they are to live. As Beatrix sets to making the house a home, she falls in love with it and the countryside nearby. But she does not fall in love with her husband...It's clear Charles has chosen her simply to meet the requirements of his inheritance and has little interest in his young wife.

Charlotte Booth loves her father and the home they share, which is set high up in the limestone escarpments of Crummockdale. But when a new businessman, Joseph Dawson, enters their lives, both Charlotte and her father decide he's the man for her, and within six months Charlotte marries the dashing mill owner from Accrington. Then a young mill worker is found dead in the swollen River Ribble. With Joseph's business nearly bankrupt, it becomes apparent that all is not as it seems, and Joseph is not the man he pretends to be.

Rainey Bird, Ivy Sparrow and Bea Herron all love to sing. For Rainey, music has been a solace during the upheaval of starting a new life with her mother, away from her abusive dad. Bea finds a confidence when she sings that she cannot get from anything else. Ivy sees it as her best chance of making a life away from Gosport and a dead-end job.  The three of them sing in a choir run by the strict but kind Mrs Wilkes. The choir provides a couple of hours of stardust each week, away from school and work and family worries.