The Old Front Line

In this latest Trench Chat we speak to Professor Peter Doyle about his current research on the mine craters of the Somme battlefields. We learn how were these craters formed, what their wartime story…

On a hill above the village of Hénin, close to Arras, stood a wooden cross remembering soldiers of the 64th Brigade who fell there in 1917. Preserved at Beverley Minster in Yorkshire, what happened t…

Charley's War was a comic strip published in the late 1970s and early 1980s telling the story of Charley Bourne, a 16 year old Tommy on the front line of the Great War. What does it tell us about the…

In this episode we look back over Season 5, discuss some of the subjects we have spoken about during the past few months, explain how the podcast is planned and made, and look ahead to Season 6. Alon…

For the final episode of Season 5 we are back on the Somme. At Contalmaison we discover the story of how the history of Great War football weaves through that village, how a pioneering eye surgeon fr…

In this special Trench Chat, we meet historian, re-enactor and professional musician Beverley Palin, and discover the story of two original WW1 instruments she has restored and now plays, and discuss…

In the latest of our series of Battlefields in a Day, we travel to Eastern France and look at the Battlefields around Verdun. Verdun was the longest single battle of the Great War, lasting some 300 d…

Concrete bunkers - pillboxes - are an iconic symbol of the Great War, and in this episode we look at the book 'The Pillboxes of Flanders' published in the 1930s, examine their history and use, and th…

In this latest Trench Chat we speak to historian and writer Caitlin DeAngelis who has just finished a fascinating new book 'The Caretakers: War Graves Gardeners and the Secret Battle to Rescue Allied…

In this episode we look at how British soldiers joined the army, either before the war or when the New Army of volunteers was created in 1914, what their training and preparation for war consisted of…

On the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, we take a virtual walk along all eighteen miles of the Somme front from Gommecourt to Montauban, connecting to the landscape and discovering the stories…

In 1986 the BBC Drama 'The Monocled Mutineer' was released, starring Paul McGann who plays Percy Toplis. In this episode, we look at the series and ask what is the truth behind Toplis and the claim t…

In this episode we look at a weapon that came to symbolise the First World War - Poison Gas. We look at the history behind its use, the story of the 'Birth of Chemical Warfare' at Ypres in April 1915…

In this episode recorded in Ypres, we look at the renovations at the Menin Gate Memorial, discuss what Memorials to the Missing mean to us, and then walk to Ypres Town Cemetery following the stories …

In another episode recorded on the battlefields, we walk the crest of the Hawthorn Ridge near Beaumont-Hamel on the Somme, visiting Hawthorn No 1 Cemetery, across to the Hawthorn Mine Crater, and dow…

A massive engineering project has been announced for Northern France which will create a new 'super canal' linking in with the existing Canal du Nord, the scene of heavy fighting during the Great War…

Recorded on the battlefields, in this episode we walk the ground where poets Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon served with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers at Bois Français near Fricourt and end at the De…

In this latest Trench Chat, we are joined by Stephen Bourne, author of Black Poppies. His important book, now in its third edition with a children's version, tells the often-neglected contribution of…

In the summer of 1916 men of the South African Brigade marched into Delville Wood. After six days of fighting, less than a third of them returned from among the shattered trees of "Devil's Wood". Who…

More than twenty years after the BBC made a film about the work of 'The Diggers' called 'Forgotten Battlefield', in this special edition of the podcast we bring together three of us connected to the …