Returning from the war, handsome Michael Quinn the cobbler is a changed man. He moves his family from their comfortable home to live in Liverpool's notorious Scotland Road. Admired and liked by his customers, he is a tyrant at home. When their mother dies, fourteen-year-old Vera is expected to keep house for him and her brothers Eddy and Benny, but he drinks away their money and the small wages Eddy and Vera earn are barely enough to keep the small family going. Then one day Michael brings Di Deverill home and life becomes an even greater hell for Vera...