Thursday's child

Maggie is a spirited child. Happy and carefree, growing up in a village on an apple orchard whereneighbours are good friends and the local landowner, the Squire, is a fair, decent man to his workers.

Life should be idyllic, if not for the unwelcome intrusion of air raids.

This is Kent, 1941, and World War II is raging. Maggie and her family endure the war only to realise that war comes in many guises.

When peacetime is declared in 1945, a different kind of war erupts within her own family with the death of her father and the self-centredness and cruelty of her mother.

Life changes from one of happy frivolity to despair and misery.

But Maggie is resilient. Despite what life throws at her, the village, her friends, and a yearning for a new life in Australia - a country she has never been to but is fascinated with - all give her the strength to keep moving forward.

Ultimately, she learns the most valuable of lessons: to believe in her dreams and to believe in herself.