Everyone thought when the alarm bell rang that it was just another fire practice. But the first bombs had fallen on Hamburg & Leningrad the headmaster said & a full-scale nuclear attack was imminent. Its a real life nightmare. Sarah & her family have to stay cooped up in a tightly sealed kitchen for days on end dreading the inevitable radioactive fall-out & the subsequent slow torturous death which seems almost preferable to surviving in a grey dead world choked by dust. But then from out of the dust & the ruins & the desolation comes new life a new future & a whole brave new world...