
Alice Lacey couldnt be more different from her sister-in-law Cora. Alice is married to John Cora to his hapless younger brother Billie. Both women give birth to sons on one chaotic night in 1940. It is Coras jealousy & resentment that prompts her to swap her puny baby for Alices beautiful son. With Alices marriage in tatters she borrows money from Cora in order to purchase the lease of the tiny hairdresser where she works. Alice is talented; the business thrives & a chain of salons becomes Laceys of Liverpool. The relationships between the cousins Cormac & Maurice their parents Alices three girls & their eventual husbands & children combine to give a unique picture of Liverpool in the last sixty years of the twentieth century.