2December 1999, and fourteen-year-old Fritha Potton is far from happy about having to spend New Year's Eve in the company of her old gran, when she could be celebrating the arrival of the new millennium, with her friends at a 'cool' party. The Great Marsh of Essex, eighty years earlier - one of the last, truly wild places of England. A girl is born into a small, fishing community. She is other-worldly from the start and at one with the wilderness around her. November 1933, aged twelve and whilst roaming the marsh, she finds and rescues a wounded bird - a snow goose - a lost and windswept refugee from a distant, northern land. She takes it to Philip Rhayader, a reclusive artist who lives in an old, isolated lighthouse and is a friend to harried and injured creatures. They are united in a warm and unlikely friendship by the fate of the bird, which develops into more, as the girl grows into a young woman. World War Two, and events take a tragic turn but then a joyous one with regard to the young woman and her relationships. After the war ends, she marries and has a son.December 31st 1999, and the story comes full-circle as grandmother and granddaughter spend an enlightening New Year's Eve together in an old lighthouse on The Great Marsh of Essex.