It is the 1950s. Tina, Hine and Sally are three young women who meet for the first time at the Preliminary Training School of a large Midland Hospital Group. After a rocky start the girls with very different backgrounds, form a lasting friendship. Tina comes from a sheltered life in a middle-class family in Stratford-on-Avon: Hine is half Maori and had an illegitimate child in New Zealand, but this is not known to the others for some time. Sally was born with a silver spoon in her mouth but after a escapade in Switzerland, is packed off to train to be a nurse, much to her disgust. The story follows the nursing experiences of the young women as they pass their Preliminary Examinations and find themselves facing the real challenges of their training and the development of relationships with the opposite sex. ++++++++ Tina is a born nurse and revels in the work in a male surgical. It is here that she meets Jerry, a man who will have an important part to play in her life. At first Hine is very homesick for the land of her birth, and for the South Island sheep station where she grew up. She was parted from her young son and longs to have news of him, but has lost touch with the cousins in New Zealand who were looking after him. She settles to study and also becomes a competent nurse. Sally is the lively, beautiful product of a wealthy family, whose mother has little time for her after her father dies. She is shunted off to an austere aunt living in a lovely old Manor House for her days off. The three year training sends the nurses to many different wards in five different hospitals, and they grow in confidence and experience. From the older General Hospital to the modern Queen Mary's; from the Children's to the Women's and the Nerve Hospital. In each, the young women have to work long hours and face many sad, exacting and even funny experiences. After the first year, the students are allowed to live away from the Nurses' Home. Tina and Hine decide to share a tiny attic flat, while Sally's mother arranges a bedsit for her in a friend's house. This does not stop Sally enjoying a lively social life. However, Sally at last finds work she revels in and is gifted to do. Here she also meets Peter Phillips, who finds the real young woman under the brash exterior. Tina becomes attracted to the worldly-wise Ralph whom she meets at a disastrous weekend with Sally at her aunt's. The innocent girl is no match for Sally's scheming cousin and has to learn the hard way how to look after herself. Hine also comes under the influence of the charismatic but amoral Ralph as he plays one girl against the other, until a crisis is reached and diverted by Jerry. After three strenuous years of training, when the friendship is cemented, each girl finds her future path.