Dana has escaped from her family farm on the west coast of Ireland. Victoria is running away from a debt-ridden aristocratic background. Beth is an army brat and throws in her lot with bitchy Celia Forsyth. And Pammy Tanner has come from quite the wrong side of the tracks in Liverpool. The world in which they now find themselves is complicated and deeply hierarchical, from lonely but formidable Matron down to Dessie who rules the Porter's boys with...

1950s Liverpool. Christmas is the most harrowing time of year for the nurses of St Angelus Hospital. A brilliant nurse secretly battling a fatal illness over Christmas... A starving baby boy abandoned in the freezing cold... A cruel, controlling mother, determined to block her daughter's nursing career at all costs... In the run up to Christmas, nurses Pammy and Beth are aiming to win the coveted national decorating competition for the St Angelus...