Welcome to our latest podcast releases…

In The British Home Front, we explore the impact of the War on people across society. We hear from:

P rofessor Chris Wrigley, University of Nottingham, on trade unions and the rise of the Labour party;
Professor Ian Beckett, University of Kent, on enlistment and conscription;
Dr Peter Grant, Cass Business School, City University London, on charitable work;
Dr Pierre Purseigle, University of Warwick, on how the Home Front coped with the influx of refugees, particularly Belgian refugees;
Professor Panikos Panayi, De Montfort University, Leicester, on internees and prisoners-of-war.

In The Story of the Somme, we hear from 2nd Lieutenant Stewart Montagu Cleeve on preparing for the artillery bombardment in June 1916 before the Battle of the Somme, the Reverend Julian Bickersteth on the hazards of taking a service at the front, and from Sapper George Coward on the night before the infantry attack on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The Last Post is played by LSgt Stuart Laing of the Welsh Guards on a 1915 bugle.

In From Amiens to Armistice, we join the students on their visit to:

Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont Hamel, where they explore the preserved battlefield and trenches, following in the footsteps of the Newfoundland Regiment on the morning of 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme; and
Sunken Lane and the Hawthorn Crater: it was in Sunken Lane that cameraman Geoffrey Malins filmed the Lancashire Fusiliers waiting to attach Beaumont Hamel on the morning of 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, shortly before the explosion of the Hawthorn Ridge mine.

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