It's the sixties. The slums are being cleared and new estates are being built. Joni Mitchell is singing and protestors are marching against the bomb. And sometimes, on the beaches of Northumberland or in the fields above the shipyards of Tyne, Dominic Hall and Holly Stroud really do find love and peace. But life is so precarious. Dom is torn between this talented enchanting lass and the dark and murderous Vincent McAlinden. He yearns for freedom but is enticed by the filth and graft of his family's past. Can he balance the future and the past? Can he walk life's tightrope without falling? After his mother dies, Dom has to decide who he is, what he wants to be - and then face up to the consequences.