Through original diaries, letters, and memoirs, this unforgettable documentary tells how the lives of regular British men and women were transformed by the Great War.
- Created by
- Paul Copeland


Through original diaries, letters, and memoirs, this unforgettable documentary tells how the lives of regular British men and women were transformed by the Great War.
1 season · 4 episodes
Episode 1
Aug 10, 201460 min
As war breaks out, the journey of Reg Evans, a cockney lad and one of the first to volunteer to fight, is told told through moving letters to his anxious mother at home. The letters of Alan Lloyd, an upper-crust young man from Birmingham wh
Episode 2
Aug 17, 201460 min
The real-life stories of Reg Evans, shot in the face in the trenches, as he undergoes pioneering plastic surgery – and of Alan Lloyd, who has swapped life with his new wife and baby son for the battlefields of Ypres and the Somme. But it
Episode 3
Aug 24, 201460 min
The focus shifts to a changing Britain, and the lives of those left behind at home. Helen Bentwich, a clever young woman who chafed against the restrictions placed on her sex – and seized the chance to work in the arms factories at Woolwic
Episode 4
Aug 31, 201460 min
In 1917, the war is in its darkest phase. Everyone knows victory can only come at a long, slow, and painful cost. So many lives have been lost that now men previously exempted from military service – because of their age or because their