Miss Martha Mary Crawford - Catherine Cookson

At the Habitation, a large and decaying riverside house in wild country twenty miles from Newcastle, the Crawford family eked out an existence. Miss Martha Mary Crawford, the eldest daughter, acted as unpaid servant to her sisters, snobbish Mildred and giddy Nancy, her schoolboy brother and her charming, unreliable father. There was, too, the problem of Aunt Sophie, closeted upstairs, living out her fantasy life, sometimes becoming violent… The Crawfords were on the verge of bankruptcy – and when Martha Mary was obliged to take on the entire responsibility for her family, a series of dramatic events occurred that would test the fortitude of even the indomitable Martha Mary Crawford.