In 1950s Bundaberg, Australia, Lola Lovell and Brownie Hansen fall in love as teenagers, a romance that faces strong resistance from their families and welfare authorities because of their ages. When Lola discovers she is pregnant, the couple runs away to protect their baby, but Lola’s mother Mrs. Lovell and the police quickly locate them and bring Lola home.
Brownie signs on with a ship that sails the coast, hoping to keep Lola in his life, and he befriends a sailor known as Bosun, who offers him work and a place aboard the crew. Back on land, Lola is pressured to have an abortion by her mother in Brisbane, and later moves to Melbourne where she works as a waitress and even bleaches her hair. The lovers are briefly reunited when Brownie visits the bar where Lola works during shore leave, and they spend the night together. The next day, Bosun finds Lola in Brownie’s cabin and urges her to leave; after a tense exchange, he agrees she can stay aboard, on the condition that she is kept “out of sight” from the other sailors.
When the ship docks, Lola and Brownie attend a party hosted by Lyle and Mavis, who live in a squat with their daughter Sharon. The two couples quickly become friends, and Lola and Brownie move into the spare room. One night, they are arrested for underage drinking and vagrancy after a night out at a pub.
Lola is sent to Aunt Westbury, a countryside caretaker, for a fixed term of 12 months, and she and Brownie are told they are not allowed to see or contact each other for a year. Brownie is fined. During Lola’s stay in the community placement, a former charge visits Aunt Westbury’s house; Lola collects the mail and, after a brief conversation with the Postman, realises Aunt Westbury has disposed of Brownie’s letters. An argument follows, and Lola runs away.
Finding her mother drunk and unsympathetic, Lola heads to Lyle and Mavis’s house, only to be arrested and sent to a reform school to restart and complete her sentence. During this time, a riot is started by the other inmates. After her eighteenth birthday, Lola completes her sentence and is immediately reunited with Brownie. Upon returning to the house, Lola discovers Mavis is heavily pregnant with her second child.
Lola wants Brownie to quit his job as a sailor and stay with her. However, Brownie faces a dilemma and confides in Bosun about his options. Meanwhile, Mavis goes into labor; the birth does not go well and both Mavis and the baby die. Although Lola and Brownie offer to adopt Sharon, they cannot do so while they are unmarried, and Lyle leaves the child with Lola to place with social services as he travels the world.
Lola eventually plans to take Sharon to the welfare office before heading back to Bundaberg, but Brownie sees Lola and Sharon in a taxi and runs after them. He catches up with the taxi, and the trio—Lola, Brownie, and Sharon—are eventually reunited. The film closes on their wedding, celebrated with family and friends and a hopeful sense of a future together.
