Four generations of women (all played by Anna Neagle in the film) have lived in Ladymead, a Georgian Mansion, while their husbands are away at war. From the Crimean War to World War II, in each case the husband returns home to find his wife more independently minded: the Crimean War wife inspired by the work of Florence Nightingale, the Boer War wife a suffragette, and the World War I wife a Jazz Age flapper.