South Africa, 1820When Ann Waite discovers a battered longboat washed ashore in Algoa Bay, she is stunned to find two survivors: a badly scarred sailor and a little boy.

Things change; we have to recognise that; the world will not stay still. What we must hope is that the new is better and stronger than the old.

Anno Domini 1546. In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing round her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a chapel where prayers will be said for his immortal soul.

As the days go by and the chapel takes shape, the outside world starts to intrude. And as the old ways are replaced by the new, the people of ...