The great war The people's story : Episode three: Helen, Andrew, Hallie, Emily and Will.

This accessible series resumes the dramatisation of the diaries, letters and memoires of people directly involved in WWI either as serving military personnel or civillians. This episode returns to 1915. Reverend Andrew Clark was a country vicar in Great Lees and wrote a diary about the village at war. HIs first role was to convene a group of Special Constables. Many soldiers were billeted in the country for training. Emily Chitticks, a servant, falls in love with a soldier from Cornwall, Will Martin, who was billeted in her area for training. Helen Bentwich meanwhile was a socialite in London and was feeling left out from the excitement. Hallie (from episode two) is fascinated by the changes she sees around her. Hallie plans to publish a book 'Economy in Wartime'; she ran a vegetarian restaurant and food prices were starting to damage her business. In January 1915, zeppelins bombed London which bought the horrors of war to the civillian population. The war spread to other fronts in the MIddle East and Africa. Helen, married to Norman who was serving in Egypt, gets a job as an overseer at the Woolwich arsenal, a munitions factory. In January 1916, compulsory conscription was introduced. Emily and Will continue their romance through letters. Hallie and Andrew report of their brush with zeppelins which terrorised everyone. Will goes to Devonport with the view to being posted overseas. Christmas 1916, Reverend Clark has already lost 9 young men from the village. By 1917 Emily is starting to consider the rights of the workers - she even joins the union. Voluntary rationing is brought in but Hallie manages to weather the crisis; she publishes a pamphlet which she offers for free through a newspaper. Meanwhile, Will goes to the Somme. Helen writes to Norman about the stresses of her job; the working conditions were terrible and a man commits suicide. 1917, Helen is sacked for her trade union activity. Emily and Will continue to correspond. Will fights at Arras and dies on active service, her last 5 letters were unopened. She died in 1973, unmarried and burried in an unmarked grave.