In working-class Leeds of 1914, sisters Julia and Margaret Wood are striving to rise above devastating poverty. War seems inevitable and angry feelings about foreigners have reached a boiling point. As a result, their German-Jewish father's search for work proves to be hopeless. It is self-educated, entrepreneurial Julia who keeps the family afloat by hawking homemade pies on the streets of Leeds. Her beautiful elder sister, Margaret, an apprentice milliner and new member of the suffragette set, seeks a faster way out of destitution, pinning her hopes to a rich suffragette, Mrs. Turner, and her journalist son, Thomas. But as the Great War rages, Julia discovers for herself the meaning of courage, and looks forward to that new day—that fresh, magical start, somewhere behind the morning.