Introduction

On 21 April 1926, three baby girls are born. In North Wales, Hester Coburn, a farm labourer''s wife, gives birth to Nell, while in Norwich, in an exclusive nursing home, Anna is born to rich and pampered Constance Radwell. And in London, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, has her first child, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary.

The future looks straightforward for all three girls, yet before Nell is eight she and Hester are forced to leave home, finding work with a travelling fair. Anna''s happy security is threatened by her father''s infidelities and her mother''s jealousy, and the Princess''s life is irrevocably altered by her uncle''s abdication.

Set in the hills of Wales and the rolling Norfolk countryside, the story follows Nell and Anna through their wartime adolescence into young womanhood as they struggle to overcome their problems, while watching ''their'' Princess move towards her great destiny. Only when they finally meet do the two girls understand that each of them is ''someone special''.