Can these young coal-miner's daughters survive on their own? Tragedy strikes a small Yorkshire mining town when Sarah Wild's husband dies in a terrible accident. Widowed and destitute, Sarah is forced to remarry to save her daughters, Mary-Anne and Eliza, from the workhouse. But her new husband is a violent drunk and when Sarah tragically dies too, Mary-Anne and Eliza are orphaned. Unable to rely on their drunken step-father, Mary-Anne and Eliza are left to fend for themselves. They are determined to stick together but life becomes complicated when Mary-Anne, the eldest, falls pregnant with the child of a married mine-owner. Scared and unsure what to do, the sisters try to hide Mary-Anne's pregnancy. But such things cannot stay secret for long.