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In this episode we hear the remarkable stories of two exceptional men, neither of whom fired a shot in anger during the Great War, but through selflessness, humility and bravery have entered into history.

We meet the Reverend Geoffrey Studdart Kennedy, better known by his nickname of Woodbine Willie, a man whose sermons were so legendary he was forced to hold up to 10 services on a Sunday, so many soldiers wanted to hear him preach.  As famous for his spicy language, as his burlap sacks of Bibles and cigarettes, Kennedy was also a prolific poet and author  Universally popular with the men, less so with the top brass, when he died over 30,000 people attended his funeral.

We also hear the story of the most highly decorated non-combatant of the War, the diminutive Reverend Theodore Hardy, whose bravery and humanity saw him awarded a Military Cross, a Distinguished Service Order, and finally a Victoria Cross for bravery.  Punctuating his arrival in the trenches with a cheerful shout of "Don't shoot boys! It's only the Padre!" he became a firm favourite with the men.

We look at the history of the Army Chaplains Corps from the Crusades to the Crimea and discover that if you've been shot in No Mans Land, you'd better hope that the Bishop of London doesn't come out to try and find you. 

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On the evening of the 15th May 1915, men from the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers left their trenches and crawled into No Mans Land in preparation for a massive attack against the Germans, just to the east of the tiny village of Festubert.  As the men lay in No Mans Land surrounded by the bodies of the dead who had been killed in a fighting a week earlier, they waited for zero hour.

The great uncle of Irish historian, Michael Nugent, was killed that day at the age of 17, and it was this tragedy that prompted Michael to write his magnificent account of the Inniskilling's actions that day, entitled "It was an awful Sunday".

We talk about the lead up to the battle, what happened on the day, and look in detail at what went wrong.  Michael shares some of the personal stories he uncovered, as well as the mystery behind why his two Uncles travelled over 90 miles from home to enlist in a regiment when their local regiment had a recruiting office just two minutes walk from home.  The remarkable discovery of a Bible on the battlefield finally led to closure for the family of one missing soldier.

Festubert is one of the forgotten battles of the Great War, and this fascinating chat with Michael sheds light on what happened on that awful Sunday in May 1915.

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In this episode, we walk the battlefield of Gommecourt, the scene of a diversionary attack on the first day of the Somme battle which saw almost 6000 men become casualties.

Untried and untested the men of the 46th and 56th Divisions found themselves attacking one of the most heavily defended strongpoints on the entire Western Front, a mass of machine guns, barbed wire, and dugouts.  

We hear the tragic tale of an 18-year-old 2nd Lieutenant who lost his life that day, the idiosyncrasies of a Divisional Commander and his pipe-smoking dog, the symbolic significance of a majestic oak tree, and hear the remarkable diary entries of a London Sergeant who survived the day and recalled in graphic detail the horrors of the battlefield. 

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Just to the south of Messines, lies a patch of woodland that packs in more military history in a small space than perhaps any other location on the Western Front.   Ploegsteert Wood (or Plugstreet as it was known to the British) saw action in every year of the War.

It saw the creation of the most iconic cartoon characters to come out of the War and the death of one of the greatest rugby players to ever pull on the white jersey of England.  The turnip field in front of the wood was the scene of an episode of the Christmas Truce in 1914, and the wood itself contains one of the saddest cemeteries anywhere on the Western Front.

Our walk begins at the Island of Ireland peace park, and takes in La Petite Douve farm, the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing, and the Berkshire Cemetery Extension.  We visit Antons Farm and conclude our journey by walking through the wood itself. 

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Our next episode takes in one of the most iconic and poignant spots anywhere on the Western Front,  Devonshire Cemetery on the Somme.  Containing 161 men of the 8th and 9th Devons who died on the opening day of the Somme, the cemetery contains the graves of two men who foresaw their own deaths - Captain Duncan Martin and Lieutenant Noel Hodgson.

The story of Captain Martin's plasticine model has become the stuff of legend, but were the men of the Devonshire Regiment really cut down by machine-gun fire from the Shrine at Mametz Cemetery, or was this firing from elsewhere? We look at Hodgson's enigmatic and pathos-ridden poem "Before Action" in which he foresees his own death, and recall a memorable visit to a French cemetery on All Souls Day, where the chrysanthemums explode the cemeteries into a riot of colour.

Also in this episode, we consider Edwardian society's view of death, and hear the story of a quack American psychic, the unlikely named Aloysius Craddock, whose stage show "Tomorrow is the new yesterday" caused shock and scandal to the great and good of London's theatre-goers. 

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In this podcast episode, I have the absolute privilege of talking to England rugby player, 2003 Rugby World Cup winner, and Great War fanatic Lewis Moody MBE.

Lewis's interest in the Great War came from being given his Great Grandfather's 1914 Star as a youngster, a medal that travelled the world with him throughout his rugby career and became an integral part of his pre-match psychological preparations for playing at the highest level.

As the RFU ambassador for the Great War centenary celebrations, Lewis travelled the world visiting the graves of those England internationals who died in WW1.  We chat about the poignancy of being on the battlefields, some of the remarkable backstories of England internationals who died in the Great War, and the poignant ceremony that took a piece of the home of England rugby to the grave of one of its greatest stars. 

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In this episode, we head back to Belgium and walk the battlefield from Hellfire Corner up to the summit of Mount Sorrel on Hill 62.

We look at Hellfire Corner "the most dangerous place on earth" and hear how a light-fingered Scot made off with what was considered to be the finest war souvenir ever seen.  We visit Birr Cross Roads, and hear the story of Harold Ackroyd VC MC, before our walk takes us to Sanctuary Wood.  We visit the preserved trenches and look at the first combat VC to be won by the Royal Flying Corps above Sanctuary Wood before our walk takes us to the Canadian Memorial on the top of Mount Sorrel.
 
The episode reminisces about a day spent guiding two members of the Roundabout Appreciation Society, and why my skills as a battlefield guide are no match for the lure of a giant tap and some exotic Belgian road furniture. 

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In this episode we look at the sportsmen who laid down their lives for their countries during the Great War.

Prompted by such eminent voices as Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, men from all sports rushed to enlist, with the campaign being so successful one battalion, the 17th Middlesex was known as the Footballers Battalion.  We start with how cycling was used to restore public morale once the fighting was over, and how the Paris-Roubaix race earned its moniker of "The Hell of the North".

We hear about Bells Redoubt, the scene of a remarkable act of bravery by the first professional footballer to enlist, and how a violent assault on a competitor in a 400m race at the 1908 Olympics lead to a gold medal for one of Britain's runners.  We look at Phillip Neame VC, the only man to win both an Olympic gold medal and the Victoria Cross, and discover how a Warwickshire cricketer was the inspiration for literature's most ingenious and famous man-servant. 

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Our second visit to the battlefield looks at the events of the 25/26 September 1915, where 75,000 men of the BEF advanced behind a curtain of poison gas in an attempt to break the German line once and for all.

In the town of Loos itself, men of the Scottish division made incredible progress and found themselves on the top of Hill 70 overlooking the open plains towards Lens.  Sadly the lack of reserves in this sector didn't allow this to be exploited.

The rest of the battlefield was an ebb and flow of success and failure, with areas of great advances being made, tempered by the annihilation of thousands of soldiers by well sighted German machine guns. Despite the initial success, the Germans called the fields around Loos "Das Liechenfeld von Loos" or The Corpsefield of Loos, and when the offensive finally ended, over 60,000 men were killed, wounded or missing. 

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In September 1915, the British launched their largest offensive of the war to date and their fourth offensive against the Germans in Artois.

The location was the grim mining town of Loos, a pancake-flat barren landscape of fortified villages, mine workings, chimneys, and slag heaps.  To make up for a critical lack of artillery shells, the British would use poison gas for the first time, but unsettlingly this was an offensive, that they didn't really want. Under pressure politically and in desperate need to maintain the entente cordiale, Sir John French's hand was forced by the Minister of War, Lord Kitchener.

This first of a two-part podcast sets the scene; it looks at the build-up to the battle, the geography which had such a massive impact on the offensive, the lack of ammunition, the animosity between French and Sir Douglas Haig, and the critical handling of the reserves which ultimately made the difference between success and failure.