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.