A lively, true story of a woman's courage during the Second World War, holding together her family of a widowed daughter and three young grand-daughters. The author, the eldest grand-daughter, writes of the family's life after moving, in 1942, to Torpoint, a small town on the Cornish side of the River Tamar, facing Devenport Dockyard. 'Gan' dominates the story. She is often harsh and unbending but overlying everything in her indomitable spirit, the strength with which she copes with the dangers and shortages of war.