This story begins where "The Crescent" ends. It follows the life of jute mill weaver Mary-Anne Garland from her prison term back to Dundee in the hard times of the general strike and into the second World War years in the city. The brutality of the treatment meted out by the "screws" who made her existence a misery inside was the beginning of her decline for the second time in her life. Dundee was a hard place to exist on the pittance wages...