Can two 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. When their mother tragically dies, the sisters are left under the care of their drunken step-father. Unable to rely on him, they are determined to stick together. But things are 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.