In this special episode we join The Army Benevolent Fund’s “Frontline Walk” from the Somme to Ypres, via Vimy Ridge. As we follow the fundraisers’ we visit a vast German Cemetery near Arras and hear from a walker whose relative is buried along the route. In Polygon Wood, we find an Australian grave with an emotional family inscription, and follow the route of the Canadians as they cross the Ravebeek in terrible conditions during the Battle of Passchendaele. We end with an emotional interview with Alix Hale, who father Mark was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2009.

In this episode we continue the story of 6th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment as they spend their first few months on the “quiet sector” of the Somme in 1915. We discover who their first casualty was and how the soldiers suffered with the mud and rats of the trenches. And they encounter mine warfare for the first time and the horrors and fear that it created. We also discuss the story of a soldier who divorced his wife who was having an affair with another soldier and find evidence of the close bond that developed between the comrades in the trenches. We end the episode at Christmas 1915. Did another truce take place.

In this episode we look at the very powerful and emotive stories of the children of the men that went off to World War 1 and never returned. How did they cope as young children? What happened to them in their adult lives? We hear from Ellen Elston whose Mother turned the portrait of her Father around because it upset her so much. And who was the WW2 airman who visited his father’s grave when he was 98 years old? How did it affect him? We also listen to the words of Gertrude Harris, who managed to get a pardon for her father who had been Shot at Dawn in 1916. And we discover the tragic story of father and son, mortally wounded just 5 miles apart from each other, 23 years apart and are buried in the same cemetery.

In this episode we commemorate the 110th anniversary of the Battle of Loos by talking to author Nigel Atter about the 8th Lincoln’s experience on the second day of the battle. We discuss how the Germans attacked them before they could go into action and how all of their Officers became casualties. We find out how one Officer was shot in the head, taken prisoner and held in captivity for over 3 years before returning home and resuming his business career. And we look at the claim that the battalion “threw their rifles away and bolted”. And much more too including the tragic story of twin brothers who died on that day.

In this episode we continue the story of Charles Carrington and his memoirs from the Great War. We hear his description of the Somme battlefield in the bitterly cold winter of 1916/17 and the German retreat from the battlefield in the Spring of 1917. We discover what it was like to route march 15 miles in a day and listen to the songs they sang along the way. We visit the grave of Mary Jane Climpson, a Salvation Army volunteer who, along with her husband, served on the Western Front in World War 1 and was killed during the 1940 retreat to Dunkirk.

In this episode we feature one of the Great War’s war most graphic books. We travel with Charles Carrington as he discovers the broken bodies of enemy dead on the Somme “bursting out of their clothes”. We hear his voice as he describes the first day of the Somme and learn how he felt under an artillery barrage. He describes the Y Sap crater at La Boisselle before being ordered to attack Ovillers in a night action. How did he overcome his fear and anxiety? What did he say to a frightened young boy soldier? And how did he describe the death of several comrades in close quarter fighting?

In this episode we look at the tragic stories of veterans and their families whose love and relationships were torn apart by the soldiers’ experiences in the Great War. We discover the story of the French girl who took her own life after being jilted by a young British Officer. And, back home in Blighty, why did RAMC man Frank Copperwaite murder his wife and then attempt to take his own life? And how did he avoid being executed? We also discover how a British Airman was so traumatised he tried to shoot his sweetheart, and never recovered from his heartbreak.

In this episode we pick up the story of the 6th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment as they leave home and head to the South Coast of England to begin their basic training. Back home in Northampton, we describe what happened when a train load of Belgian refugees arrived. We also meet the Battalion’s first CO, George Ripley, and discover how the men occupied themselves when “at rest”, but got themselves into trouble. And we discover the tragic stories of 2 soldiers who succumb to illness before they even leave the UK.

In this episode we go back to 1932 and discover the story of the people involved in the design and construction of the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission anywhere in the world. We discover what inspired the architect Edwin Lutyens after a battlefield visit in 1917. We also look at the stories of several soldiers commemorated on the memorial, including a dying Sherwood Forester who wrote a heartbreaking letter to his Mum, and the story of a Hampshire Officer who could not pluck up the courage to propose to his girlfriend, until it was too late.

In this episode we begin telling the story of one of “Kitchener’s Army” New Army battalions – 6th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment. During this series we will follow the story of this Battalion, from recruitment and training in 1914, to the Somme in the summer and winter of 1916/17, to Arras, the horrors of Ypres and the German Spring Offensive of 1918. And we will continue their journey on the 100 Day Offensive. In this first episode, we discover who these volunteers were, and visit the barracks where they enlisted and paraded. Their story is told using the soldiers’ own words.