Set in 1910. Andy Robson is uprooted from his life in the pit community of Easington when his father is killed in a mining accident. Andy is sent to live in a remote part of Northumberland to live with his Aunt and Uncle. There he upsets his new schoolmaster, the school bully and the rest of the locals. It's here that he befriends a local boy Alec and young Victoria Dennison and comes to realise that there is another life outside of the village pit.