FAMILY OF WOMEN
1950 - seven-year-old Carol Martin lies encased in an iron lung, struck down by the killer disease, polio. Distraught by her side, her mother, Violet, wonders if this is her punishment - for Carol is the love child who should not have been born...
Spanning more than half of the last century, Family of Women is the story of one family - and of the joys, struggles and changes in women's lives.
MISS PURDY'S CLASS
In the New Year of 1936, Gwen Purdy, aged twenty-one, leaves her home to become a schoolteacher in a poor area of Birmingham. Her parents are horrified, but she has the support of her fiancé, a recently ordained clergyman.
Her early weeks in Birmingham are an eye-opener: at the school she faces a class of fifty-two children, some of whose homes are among Birmingham's very poorest. One of the teachers, the elderly Miss Drysdale, proves an inspiration, and Gwen begins to understand the appalling hardships endured by the children as she is drawn into their lives.