Set in London in the depressed years immediately following World War I, NIPPY is the story of two best friends, Becky and Eleanor. Becky has a loving family but Ella's father died in the war leaving his family in poverty. Ella is tough and able to take life in the laundry where the two girls begin work aged 14, but Becky soon realises it's not the life for her and begins work at a Lyons Corner House, soon moving up to become a waitress or Nippy. During the heady years of the 1920s the girls remain friends, indulging in the scandalous fashions and the `immoral' Charleston, until Ella's mother dies and loneliness propels her into marriage with a sensible man, ten years her senior. Becky, despite her many admirers, is in no hurry to marry and instead is determined to have her own business as well as a man she really loves...