Vera returns to Oxford, where she strikes up a friendship with a fellow student, before beginning to concentrate on writing.
After another loss, Vera retreats into nursing, but the demands of her parents, and yet more tragedy, begin to overwhelm her.
As the war continues to rage, Vera receives devastating news from all sides, which forces her to reconsider her future.
A dramatization of Vera Brittain's 1933 autobiography Testament of Youth---a memorial to a generation devastated by WWI--- chronicles her experiences as a nurse in London and Malta and at the front lines in France. It opens with 18-year-old Vera, the genteel daughter of a paper-mill owner, nurturing 'hopes of escaping from provincial young ladyhood.' Her plan is to attend Oxford.