The Pledge

It is the 1950s. Tina, Hine and Sally are three young women who meet for the first time at the Preliminary Training School of a large English Midland Hospital Group. After a rocky start the girls with very different backgrounds, pledge a lasting friendship. Tina comes from a sheltered life in a middle-class family in Stratford-on-Avon: Hine is half Maori and had an illegitimate child in New Zealand, but this is not known to the others for some time. Sally was born with a silver spoon in her mouth but after an escapade in Switzerland, is packed off to train to be a nurse, much to her disgust. The story follows the nursing experiences of the young women as they pass their Preliminary Examinations and find themselves facing the real challenges of their training and the development of relationships with the opposite sex. Sally marries the charming surgeon Peter Phillips, while Tina and Hine travel out by ship to New Zealand to try to find her young son Tane. Aboard ship they meet the ship's doctor, Jim Wainright who has resorted to alcohol to forget a sad past. Hine's developing love for Jim is a lifeline, and they seek for Tane together once they reach New Zealand. Left alone, Tina has her own adventures when she meets the charismatic Scotsman, David Robb. All does not run smoothly for the feisty couple, and it takes dramatic circumstances in New Zealand, England and Scotland to resolve their differences.