Following the relationships between families that live in tenements on Columbia Road in Bethnal Green, the story starts in 1948 amid the bomb sites left behind after the Second World War. The outlooks for the families are contrasted, with some content to earn enough to keep their families together, while others are more ambitious. Their backgrounds are also very varied, including refugees from Nazi Europe, recent immigrants from the Commonwealth and locals of many years standing. Hill’s writing captures their struggles to provide and to attain their aims, but at differing costs to the families. Then a life-changing event leads to a jump forward to 1968 and an exploration of how this event affected the families. Hill explores in a moving and sympathetic novel, the price that people may pay for pursuing their dreams while ignoring their family and friends.