September 1914. Eighteen-year-old Daisy Gilbert is the star seamstress at Madam Evans' prestigious gown shop in Southampton but her ambition is to open her own dressmaking business. Her beloved father is desperately ill with TB and Daisy is determined to find enough money to send him to a nursing home so when the flamboyant Mrs Cummings suggests that Daisy work for her in the evenings as a barmaid at the Solent club a local upmarket brothel she accepts. When Madam Evans hears about Daisy's other job she fires her - will Daisy be able to care for her father and preserve her own virtue?