About the relationship between a girl and her single mother, who has breast cancer.

During the Crusades, Vercors betroths his beautiful daughter Violaine to Jacques. She cannot marry Jacques because she has contracted leprosy, so Jacques marries her younger sister Mara. Jacques and Mara's first child dies soon after its birth, and Mara begs Violaine to return from seclusion to restore the child to life.

The annual British Hairdressing Championship comes to Keighley, a town where Phil and son Brian run a barbershop and Phil's ex-wife Shelly and her lover Sandra run a beauty salon.

Clive (Kevin McNally) and Carol Smith (Rebecca Lacey) are a Merseyside couple who are struggling to raise their two teenage children, Wayne (Scott Neal) and Debbie (Heather Jones)