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Young Cockney girl Nelly [Nelke] is at crossroads in 1910. She is viciously abused by a relative and runs away. She is taken in by a poor farming family who later dump Nelly in an orphanage. Aged 14, Nelly now works as Lady's Maid for a noble family who are soon destroyed by war.- Foolishly, Nelly takes the job of carer to a handicapped woman. Her own family murder the old lady - Nelly is blamed for the killing. On the morning of execution the hanging mechanism fails 3 times - she is released, according to the law. She disappears into her beloved 'Fields of Blue' and runs into Albert, eldest son of the farming family who abandoned her. They are married, but Albert is a communist who would rather fight fascists in Spain. He dies quickly, but a proud Nelly has not told him that she is pregnant. When their daughter is born, she gives the child away and returns to London. She sees the terror of many homeless orphans on the bomb sites in London and starts to collect many children, to ferry them away from danger. By pure chance she finds her own daughter alive. Nelly marries again, but, by the end of the war, she has about 12 children to care for and is exhausted. The end of the war sees her longing for the countryside. One day when the family returns home, they find that Nelly has disappeared.
