The Week We Went To War

Among the wartime stories included in the first programme are interviews with survivors of the Catford school bombing in South London. Mary Burge, then six years old, tells how they all rushed to the window when they heard a plane, thinking it was British. She saw the German pilot wave before watching as her brother John was killed by the exploding bomb. The German plane dropped its 100lb bomb on the junior school in broad daylight. Thirty-eight children and six teachers were killed – the largest single loss of children's lives on the Home Front during the war. Some of those who were caught up in the tragedy pay tribute on the programme to the ordinary people who searched for survivors. Eric Brady lost his big sister, Kitty, and says she saved his life – her body was found lying over his. Eric says: "If it hadn't been for her I would have been the one dead." Like Eric, 10-year old Brenda Ward was in the school dining room that day: "I heard the very loud noise of a low-flying plane so I got up and I had a look and, honestly, I could see this plane so low I could see the pilot's goggles." Katherine Jenkins says: "If you have links to the war the programme is going to bring back memories. For young people like myself, there are a lot of events that I was unaware of because they happened on the Home Front – terrible things like the Bethnal Green Tube disaster, where 173 people died. I have learnt so much." The programme also takes a look at the renaissance of Forties glamour today as well as the more utilitarian styles of the time. And Douglas Wood tells of the emotional trauma of his wartime evacuation in Staffordshire.

The Week We Went To War pays tribute today to Home Front hero Thomas Hopper Alderson, who won Britain's first George Cross when he saved 11 lives after a German air raid on Bridlington, North Yorkshire. Presenter Katherine Jenkins talks to Alderson's daughter, Pamela, about her memories of her father. Twenty-one-year-old student and Masterchef contestant Ben Ellison spent a month for the progamme living on wartime rations to see if it really is healthier. Katherine says: "I have found the whole thing fascinating and I just felt that, with things like the rations, how easily we now throw stuff away. You can see why older people are so careful not to be wasteful." And evacuee John Bargewell, from Belfast, goes back to his wartime home in rural north Ulster for the first time since the war. John and his two brothers were evacuated 48 miles to a home that had none of the modern conveniences that they were used to in their city life. The programme also takes a look at how and what people ate as well as the games they played as children.

Today's programme looks at one of the worst nights of the Blitz – 29 December 1940 – and pays tribute to the ordinary British people and, in particular, the firemen of London who helped save St Paul's Cathedral. And the programme features Henry Wuga, who was evacuated at the age of 14 from the heart of Nazi Germany to Britain. But he was arrested in Glasgow and interned on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien. Henry honed his skills as a baker and has since enjoyed a long career as a caterer, and still lives in Glasgow. Today's edition also takes a look at how people entertained themselves during the war and visits Blackpool which, safer than London, was where, night after night, the show went on – even if the illuminations didn't.