The Adams family of Walworth were poor, cheerful, and above all respectable - even though they sometimes had to seek a little help from the pawnbroker.

Mrs. Adams - affectionately called Chinese Lady by her children - was a widow, her soldier husband having gone, rather carelessly, to a hero's death on the Northwest Frontier. There was Boots, the bright one, and Tommy, the quiet one, and Sammy, the nine-year old wheeler-dealer of the family. There was Mr. Finch, the lodger, and dreadful Em'ly next door, and genteel Miss Chivers with the terrible old mother, but above all there was Lizzy.

Lizzy was one of the prettiest girls in Walworth. She was young, and always sounded her aitches, and she cared terribly about being clean and neat and... proper. Lizzy was a peach of a girl.

When Lizzy fell in love it was 1914. Everyone was going to be affected, things were going to change. But whatever happened, the Adams family - gutsy, tough and cheeky - would come through.