Inspired by the memories of his mother, originally told to Dinu Li as childhood bed-time stories, the book traces, through photographs and personal quotes, the story of a woman born in rural China and her escape to a new life via Hong Kong and eventually the industrial north of England. Li's photographs tease out moments in time, from 1920s China, mid 50s Hong Kong through its transition from fishing village to metropolis under British administration and finally ends in 1970s Britain at a time of strikes and de-industrialisation, through to the millennium.