Growing up just around the corner from Islington's Chapel Market, the second of six children born in the tiny flat above Mr Popov's piano factory, red-headed, big-hearted Rose Humble is used to holding her own in the world. When there's a family problem - her father's arrest for thieving, her mother losing her job at the London Transport Staff Canteen - it is Rose who somehow manages to bring the Humbles through the crisis, But as she grows older and war starts to cast its shadow over all their lives, Rose realises there are some problems a quick wit and a ready tongue cannot solve. And she also comes to see that there are people who are not all they seem...