A girl, Nell was convinced, should have a good time at seventeen, have met her true love at eighteen, be engaged at nineteen, and marry at twenty-one. While her mother regards the Locarno Dancehall as a den of iniquity, for seventeen-year-old shop-girl, Nell McClusky, it's the centre of the universe. Where else is she going to meet the man of her dreams who'll take her away from the hum-drum realities of life on a council estate in 1950s Edinburgh? At first Alistair Rutherford doesn't look that promising. He dresses more like a student than Nell's idol, Buddy Holly. But Alistair comes from a wealthy family and is studying to be a lawyer, two things that mean that Nell soon has plans to leave her dance hall days far behind her. But the reality of marriage is far different to Nell's romantic notions ...