The year is 1925, and in Liverpool, Rose Ryder worships her father, a tram-driver. She nurses a secret dream of driving trams too, even though it's not considered a job for women. Meanwhile, in Dublin, Colm O'Neill is happily settled - until his father gets a job working on the Liverpool-Birkenhead tunnel, and takes Colm across the water with him. When tragedy strikes, Rose and her mother scrape a living by turning their home into a boarding house. And it is their boarding house to with Colm and his father come when they arrive in Liverpool...