The Great War: The People's Story

Episode 3 (1x3)

Air date: Aug 24, 2014

1917: Hallie Miles publishes her book Health Without Meat and is one of many expressing their fears about Zeppelin raids. Also in London Helen Bentwich, a barrister's wife whose family has long denied her any vocation, comes to work at the Woolwich arsenal. She is shocked by the conditions of the working class and is instrumental in union activity. In the Essex country side Scots parson Andrew Clark, in his memoirs Echoes of the Great War shares Hallie's horror of the Zeppelin bombing raids and concern that so many young men are being sent to the trenches to be slaughtered. Also in Essex nineteen year old housemaid Emily Chitticks meets and falls in love with Cornish teenager Will Martin whose regiment has been billeted nearby. He is sent to the war and the pair exchange letters but he is killed by a sniper. Emily will never marry despite surviving until 1973.