County Durham, 1832. Driven from Weardale by poverty and idealism, ignoring the warnings of his brother-in-law Rowland, young lead miner Tommy Emerson takes work at Hetton-le-Hole colliery. Expecting to be welcomed among his fellow Primitive Methodists, he is dismayed to meet with anger and hatred. For the work he has so eagerly taken is strike-breaking, and they are the dispossessed union leaders. Only collier's daughter Matty Grey brightens Tommy's lonely life in hostile, grimy Hetton, so far from the green hills of Weardale. But if Matty, fiercely loyal to the union, ever learns the truth about Tommy, she will abandon him - or worse. Trapped in a vicious cycle of mistrust, deception and disease, anguished by the irreconcilable gulf between himself and Matty, Tommy faces the utmost test of his faith, endurance - and love.