Season 1 • Episode 3
LatestCharles has tuberculosis, but recovers enough to marry Agnes. They move to the Hall when Colonel and Mrs Farrier die, and look after the estate while Reg is at war. Reg survives the war, but is badly injured, and refuses to face the outside world. Reg plans to sign the Hall over to Charles and Agnes, but soon Agnes again faces tragedy.
On the eve of World War I, Agnes Conway manages both the business and the problems of her troubled family. She finds the strength to break class barriers and help her sister Jessie marry a good boy from a family of dockside toughs. Is she strong enough to break them again when Charles Farrier, a gentleman, courts her over his parents' opposition? Agnes faces an added dilemma when she finds her heart divided between Charles and his soldier brother Reginald.
Acting
Claire Skinner anchors every scene with quiet steel.
Production
Gritty pre-war England, no Downton Abbey polish.
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on Catherine Cookson's novel, part of a 1990s boom in British regional working-class period dramas before Downton made the genre aristocratic again.
Claire Skinner and Anne Reid would later play mother and daughter again in 'Dinnerladies'—wildly different energy, same chaotic family dynamics.
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