 Based on the novel by Martin Boyd (1946) this miniseries tells the story of many generations of a family who migrate from England to Australia and eventually back to England, suffering poverty and becoming social climbers. The family s social ambitions lead to conflicts between Lucinda and her parents over the attentions of Tony Duff. She therefore marries wealthy Englishman Hugo Brayford and moves to England with him. A series of failures and adulterous episodes in England lead to her experience of "geographical schizophrenia" and personality disintegration.