A family's triumphs and tragedies, from life as privileged distillery owners to the horrors of the trenches in France.

Charlotte becomes engaged to Lieutenant Geoffrey Armitage as the Great War breaks out,. The war takes its toll on all her fmaily, as the men become soldiers and the women nurses.

Charlotte's brother Andrew is in Ireland and involved in the 1916 Easter uprising. When his girlfriend and her family are killed by an Irish militant, he kills the man and his family, as well as six others.

As the war ends, they return to Scotland a different family and now must cope with the changes that have happened and those still to come . . .