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Visions of World War One on BBC One Wales

2016-07-10T14:00:00+00:00

Boesinghe Chateau by Carey Morris (Photo Credit: The Regimental Museum of the Royal Welsh, Brecon)

Former MP Kim Howells is presenting Visions of World War One on BBC One Wales tonight (Monday 11 July), the programme considers how Welsh artists portrayed World War One, from the morale raising prints of 1914 to the poignant memorials that still stand in towns and villages across Wales. Here, in a blog originally posted on BBC Wales, Kim shares his experiences of making the programme.

With the BBC Wales film crew, I looked across a field at Mametz Wood on the battlefield of the Somme - a dark and sombre prospect in the February rain. Trees, tall and bare, grown from the seed of a forest obliterated by British artillery in July 1916, rise, now, from a tangle of bramble and hazel, rust-coloured in winter, like century-old barbed wire.

I walked up the gentle slope to the forest, over the claggy chalk soil, unable to imagine how young men, burdened with equipment and weapons could have made the same, short crossing of open ground under a deadly hail of German machine gun fire. There was nowhere to hide.

In the forest, hidden by the tangled thorns, is a floor pitted with the concave evidence of shell-holes. I wonder how any German soldier could have survived such a barrage. But they did and, when the British shells ceased landing, the German machine-gunners emerged from their bunkers and commenced their slaughter of the advancing Welsh and English infantry.

It was here that the artist and poet David Jones was wounded in the savage hand-to-hand fighting. Mametz Wood was the Welsh Division’s fiercest and most costly engagement of the Great War. Lloyd George commissioned the Maesteg-born artist, Christopher Williams, to paint a version of it – a huge, dramatic canvas of savagery and killing that was to hang in the drawing room of No.10 Downing Street, perhaps as a reminder to visiting generals, diplomats and politicians of the human consequences of failing to keep the peace in an age of industrial, total war. I doubt that any photograph could have fulfilled that function so vividly.

The paintings and drawings fulfil a different role, now. They give us an insight into the reality of life in the trenches a century ago – not just of the blood and guts, fighting and shelling but also of the long periods of sitting around, waiting and watching. David Jones and Carey Morris (an artist from Llandeilo) sketched their fellow soldiers in the dugouts boiling kettles, cleaning guns, preparing food or just sitting, smoking and chatting.

There is a small, dark painting by Morris of a ruined chateau on the front line, near Ypres in Belgium. It portrays the war continuing into the night. British soldiers are hidden in the darkness, their presence indicated only by the glow of their cigarettes, as the night sky over no-man’s land is lit by flares. Morris could only have painted it because he was there, as a soldier, seeing men seeking some solace from tobacco in the darkness. I know of no photograph that captures such a moment and such telling detail in the terrible years of battle around Ypres.

The tiny fragments of the wars that I saw first-hand in Iraq and Afghanistan and in countries torn by sectarian violence and civil war were enough to convince me that artists, writers and composers – as well as brave photographers, film-makers and journalists – can add greatly to our understanding of these events by communicating their own, special perception and interpretation of the conflicts into which they find themselves pitched. That is why it is so important to explore the work of these remarkable Welsh men and women during the Great War.

Visions of World War One, part of World War One from BBC Wales.

Watch Visions of World War One on Monday 11 July, 10.40pm BBC One Wales

The centenary of Hartlepool Bombardment – how we covered the stories of 100 years ago

2014-12-19T14:56:05+00:00

On 16th December 1914 Hartlepool on the North East coast was the site of the first civilian deaths on UK soil during the First World War.

More than 100 people were killed as a thousand shells blasted the town for 40 minutes from three German ships (Blucher, Seydlitz and Moltke) shortly after 0800. Among the casualties was Theo Jones – the first soldier to be killed on British soil in the First World War.

BBC Tees’ coverage of the centenary of the Hartlepool Bombardment was one of our most ambitious projects to date, and one that was months in the planning.

We realised early on in that planning that it was a vast project likely to appeal to a national audience as well as those served by the BBC local radio station for Hartlepool, BBC Tees. It was also clear that to do justice to the events of that day, our coverage would need to cover not just radio, but also television, online and social media.

Two journalists led on covering the stories from the Bombardment – Jonathan Swingler and Lee Johnson - and whilst researching their stories they came across the Teesside Archive and a collection of around 600 tapes containing previously unheard audio. These tapes contained stories recorded in the 1980s of elderly Hartlepool residents, many of whom were children when the shells struck the town. A broadcast assistant sifted through all the material and pin pointed what was the most important and emotive recollections. They all recalled what they were doing at the exact moment of the first shelling, as the fear and enormity of it all began to take hold. To uncover this unheard audio was an exciting discovery for our team and it proved to be the starting point of our Outreach project.

After digitising the stories, we then took them to Dyke House School in Hartlepool and played them to a group of teenagers who had all volunteered to be part of the BBC Outreach project. Kate Fox, a performance poet and writer based in North Yorkshire, led a weekly discussion at the school working with a history teacher and Helen Amess from the BBC Outreach to discuss the audio, and what the teenagers felt when they heard the accounts.

What struck the school children most was that the people telling these stories were no longer alive and that many of them had been teenagers at the time of the attack – the same age as themselves. They all said they felt they had a responsibility to tell these stories and to keep the memories alive for future generations.

Ceramic poppies form Hartlepool Bombardment memorial

They produced a poem which they performed as part of the moving ceremony which saw a new war memorial unveiled to the civilian casualties of the Hartlepool Bombardment. The 130 people who died that day were publically named and remembered, as children from a local primary school planted a ceramic poppy, originally part of the Tower of London installation, one for each casualty.

Our coverage of the Hartlepool Bombardment started early in the morning on 16th December with a special Breakfast Show presented by Ali Brownlee, taking listeners back to the day with real-time reports to coincide with the historical timings of the attack. At around 0750, just as the sun was coming up, we managed to pull off a successful broadcast from a small fishing boat out at sea containing one of our reporters, David MacMillan.

David MacMillan broadcasts from the North Sea, where the Germans fought from on December 16th, 1914

The idea behind this report was to give the perspective of the German boats out at sea, looking back inland towards Hartlepool just before they started their attack on the town. It was a great relief to pull this off as it was probably the part of the broadcast with the biggest potential to go wrong.

The logistical and technical challenges didn’t end there, with a total of six different live sources and six local presenters and reporters across Hartlepool and Whitby contributing to that hour. Our Engineer John Proudler deserves great credit for the smooth overseeing of such a difficult live broadcast.

Later in the afternoon, BBC Tees’ Afternoon Show came live from the Borough Hall in Hartlepool where guests assembled to enjoy an afternoon tea dance, exhibition and poetry recitals.

In the months prior to the centenary, we had successfully secured funding to send our reporter Jonathan Swingler out to Germany to visit Heligoland naval museum to speak to historians about the German mood before and after the Bombardment. He managed to secure access to one of the ships Commanders’ diaries and read inside how the commander felt before the mission to Hartlepool

Jonathan also looked at archive material of German newspapers reporting on the attack and even took a piece of shrapnel found 100 years ago from Hartlepool back, to place in situ next to one of the gun barrels from the war ships.

Photo by BBC reporter Jonathan Swingler of Hartlepool shell fragment next to Seydlitz gun barrell in Germany

The material he gathered in Germany ran across BBC outlets including the national BBC bulletin at one o’clock, BBC Look North, BBC Tees and online and were a good example of original journalism which we wouldn’t have been able to do without the additional funding.

These examples of looking at the Bombardment from the German perspective were seen as a new way to cover this well-known local story and received praise from many people including Mandy Southcott, Vice-Chair of The Heugh Gun Battery in.

The dedicated Local Live web page of the Bombardment, delivered by Kristie Kinghorn with Rachel Kerr, was the second most viewed page on the BBC website on the afternoon of 16th December.

As well as real-time reporting of historical events as they unfolded, the website also contained ‘Then and Now’ images showing the damage and after effects of the bombardment alongside present-day images of the buildings.

It also carried video footage of several reports including the Imperial War Museum material (also played out on BBC Look North) of a joint funeral of two previously unknown sailors who were buried in Middlesbrough. Hartlepool Borough Council’s history expert, Mark Simmons, revealed to the BBC that his research had finally identified it as the funeral of Ralph Weston Hook and George Charles Martin Flynn.

It’s been thrilling to be part of such an ambitious project, and inspiring to see how imaginatively and authoritatively the BBC Tees’ team delivered it. BBC Tees was honoured to be named ‘Station of the Year’ (under one million) at the Radio Academy Awards this year, and the judges commented that the station was clearly “dedicated to serving their audience with flair and passion”. I believe the team demonstrated that with their work on this coverage.

We are now planning a radio documentary from the Hartlepool Bombardment coverage to go out over Christmas on BBC Tees, and we’ve had discussions about some of the audio and pictures we gathered being used as part of the display at the Heugh Gun Battery visitor attraction. Dyke House School are continuing to develop the Outreach work using the poem the children wrote with Kate Fox for educational purposes.

BBC Tees had to creatively approach a story from 100 years ago, which was well known to many locally, and do it justice. We worked in collaboration with several organisations and partners and thanks must go to Hartlepool Borough Council, Teesside Archive, Imperial War Museum and Heugh Gun Battery.

With their kind support, we hope that we honoured the momentous events of a hundred years ago.

Dan Thorpe is Managing Editor, BBC Tees.

Tunics for Goalposts: Football on the front line in WW1

2014-12-11T16:03:00+00:00

After I retired as football correspondent and commentator at the World Cup in Brazil, I was invited to make occasional contributions to some special programmes on 5 live. Little did I know how ‘special’ the first one would be.

I have never taken part in anything before like Tunics For Goalposts – never felt so emotionally involved in a project – never learned so much from one hour.

Like most people, I have been made aware of the horror of the First World War. There probably isn’t a single family in the UK without some connection to the horrendous events between 1914 and 1918.

My knowledge though was sketchy and superficial. I had never visited any of the frontline battlefields in Belgium and France, something I would now urge everyone to try and do.

When you do, as I discovered, it is of course impossible to fully comprehend what it must have been like to experience such personal carnage and trauma – however walking ankle deep in autumnal mud on a raw November morning shrouded in mist across the ploughed battlefields on the Somme does offer an insight into how desperate it must have been for the troops, huddled together in rat-infested trenches, deprived of sleep, numb with cold and terrified that every day could be your last.

Everywhere you walk in those farmlands and forests, you are mindful of the fact that more often than not your footsteps are being made over hallowed soil, a massed burial ground underneath filled with so many bodies never recovered from the bloody conflict after vanishing beneath a quagmire of craters.

Among those entombed having lost their lives so young were footballers, who would never return to their clubs. Players from all levels of the game united in their supreme sacrifice.

Originally our intention on 5 live was to make a programme about the infamous Christmas truce matches in 1914, to discover and debate whether they were fact or fiction. This will be an important part of the programme, however the more we researched the subject it became clear that we should take on a wider brief and pay tribute to the footballers who gave their lives for their country.

When war broke out in August 1914, football was initially pilloried in many quarters as the league programme continued and the game came under great pressure. Attitudes soon changed. Hearts in Scotland led the way as football answered the call, and uniquely many of the players who decided to enlist for service did so by signing up for the 17^th Middlesex regiment which was to become known as the footballers battalion.

I was accompanied on my visit to France by Andrew Riddoch, author of When the Whistle Blows, the definitive story of the footballers battalion. In the book and in the programme, Andrew documents stories of remarkable gallantry by footballers on the frontline and records how whenever the opportunity presented itself they still managed to put their tunics down for goalposts and play games.

Andrew highlights the story of one of the most popular players who lost his life, the Grimsby Town captain Sidney Wheelhouse. 5 live made it possible for two of his descendants to travel with us in France to visit his grave for the first time. Sid’s great granddaughter Diane and husband Dean, a Falklands veteran have ensured that his name is never forgotten in Grimsby and after laying a wreath and leaving a Grimsby Town scarf by his gravestone now feel an even closer bond with him after what was an overwhelmingly emotional experience for them both.

Sidney was one of the unlucky ones who didn’t return. The Great War was such a lottery. My mother was born five years after the war ended and told me that her father jack had signed up for service after lying about his age. At the tender age of 17. A notebook in the breast pocket of his uniform deflected a sniper’s bullet and saved his life…and mine!

Mike Ingham is a presenter on BBC Radio 5 live.

Tunics for Goalposts will be broadcast on BBC Radio 5 live on Thursday 11 December at 8pm.
Find out more about footballers in WW1 on the BBC iWonder website.
Experience BBC iWonder’s interactive drama Footballers United.

Footballers United: Online WW1 drama

2014-11-27T09:01:07+00:00

Today sees the launch of our online drama for iWonder as part of the BBC’s World One Season. Footballers United is an ambitious project commissioned by BBC Learning and is one of the final pieces of digital content we will launch in this first year of the BBC’s four-year centenary season. This pilot follows BBC Learning’s first experiment with an online drama - an interactive episode of Our World War for BBC Three.

With Footballers United, we wanted to find a new and interesting way to tell the true story of a community surrounding the Heart of Midlothian football team from 1914-1919 in Scotland. It’s a very moving story that follows both the men and women, in Edinburgh and around the country, whose lives were forever changed by World War One.

By hosting this drama online, we were able to combine new fictional content, that is the drama itself, with factual archived content; giving our audience the chance to learn more about the history and background of the story they’re watching, as they’re watching it. We’ve done this by having an interactive timeline in the drama that prompts you when there is archived content available for you to see, such as video, audio, images and text as well as social media elements.

By signing into Facebook the timeline maps events in WW1 to your social media graph; showing how your friends and a modern day social community would have fared throughout the war. For example, when you pass the first day of the Somme in the drama, a social media item will appear that shows how your friends would have fared had they been in the battle at the time.

This project has really given us the chance to explore a new way to tell stories online and I hope that people will enjoy the combination of new and archived content, that it will give them a deeper understanding and knowledge about WW1 yet still entertain them, and more importantly, move them.

We have been thrilled to work with Gemma Fay, Captain and Goalkeeper of the Scottish National Women’s Football team, who presents the archive content which precedes each chapter. The extraordinary (and mostly unknown) story of women’s football during WW1 is one of the main themes of the drama and I am really excited to see how our audiences will use the ability to delve into actual photos and documents from the time as the drama plays out.

Our main ambition for this season was to re-introduce audiences to a war they thought they knew. Our digital content has been a key way of reaching younger audiences with a much broader story of the war that changed everything. We started the year with the launch of iWonder and the release of a range of interactive guides, telling stories as varied as the vital importance of the pigeon in WW1, to the war in Tongo and how Lord of Rings was inspired by Tolkien’s experience on the Western Front.

In June we collaborated closely with BBC News to re-tell the events around the assassination or Archduke Ferdinand as if they were happening today. Our first set of online learners have just completed our pilot set of WW1 MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) in partnership with four leading universities in the UK, and used our social media platforms to help mark some the key anniversaries of the Great War.

The breadth and scale of the BBC’s activity in this first year of this centenary season has only been possible because of some fantastic partnership working across the BBC, including teams in Future Media, Nations and English Regions, BBC News and colleagues across our global news services as well as a huge range of external partners including the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Imperial War Museums and the RAF Museum (to name just a few).

We will continue to mark some of the key moments in WW1 right to the end of the season in 2018 – I hope it will continue to stimulate your interest in such an important moment in our all histories.

Tim Plyming is the Executive Producer in Knowledge and Learning and has been overseeing the digital content as part of the BBC’s World War One Centenary Season

Watch Footballers United
Visit the BBC's World War One portal
Read Tim's blog Our World War gets interactive
Find out more about iWonder

The face of World War I

2014-11-13T11:08:00+00:00

On Friday, ahead of Remembrance weekend, the BBC revealed a giant mosaic outside Broadcasting House featuring the "Face of WW1". There for all to see is an image of Private James Ernest Beaney, a soldier from London who died in the Somme, in 1916.

With every BBC Local Radio station and regional news programme creating outstanding programming around WW1, this mosaic is our way remembering those who gave their lives as a product of that work.

Commissioning artist Helen Marshall told me she wanted to take on this ambitious project as a way of commemorating the First World War in the digital age. The mosaic does just that in the most powerful way having been brought to life by English Regions, BBC Learning and our partners the Imperial War Museum.

The thousands of audience faces were taken for ID cards in our ‘recruiting office’ during the BBC WW1 At Home events which have touched audiences throughout the summer. These have been combined with original First World War imagery sourced from the Imperial War Museum’s archive and additional original images submitted by people from around the country with the end result featuring over 30,000 images.

The ID cards we created were based on one that was used at the time to help people gain entry to security sites across the UK, like those used in the First World War.

The unveiling of the mosaic has certainly had impact. Over 1.2 million people saw it on Friday morning when it was revealed on Facebook. Since then we have seen people adding their own memories and thoughts to the page in their hundreds which shows how it resonates with people around the country.

At last week’s Local Radio Gillard Awards in Hull, the Director-General Tony Hall spoke about the passion and dedication involved in the production of local programming, and the WW1 project has certainly been an example of that.

The aim to put audiences at the very heart of what the BBC does is clear, while the mosaic represents the spirit of WW1 At Home, our landmark UK wide project that tells powerful, fascinating and moving stories about the impact of WW1 right on our doorsteps.

Private Beaney, who died serving with 6th Battalion The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment was born 16th April 1893 in Battersea, St Mary, Wandsworth to Ernest and Maria Beany.

He attested on 15 August 1914, in Kingston on Thames and was killed in action on 8 August 1916. His war grave can be found at Bouzincourt Communal Cemetery, Picardie, France and the image of Private Beany The Face of WW1 has also been turned into a short film. Explore the story of how the UK came together to create this piece of commemorative art in the special iWonder guide.

The BBC’s First World War Centenary is the biggest and most ambitious pan-BBC season ever undertaken. Featuring four years of programming and events spanning 2014-2018 – echoing the timeframe of the war – the World War One Centenary on the BBC will be unique in scale and breadth on BBC TV, Radio and Online and across international, national and local services. Alongside our collection of WW1 programmes from across the BBC the mosaic offers an opportunity to reflect all of those who gave their lives in this conflict, and others.

David Holdsworth is Controller, BBC English Regions

Discover more about World War One at Home
Find out more about the BBC's First World War Centenary
Read Building understanding about the conflict which gave birth to modern remembrance
Also Revealing the World War One at Home project
See further World War One blogs on About the BBC

Building understanding about the conflict which gave birth to modern remembrance

2014-11-06T12:23:18+00:00

Every November since 1919, the nation has paused to reflect and remember. It is a moment born out of the First World War but which has come to recognise all of those who have been involved in conflicts over the past century. This year will be no different, but the fact that exactly 100 years ago the world had become embroiled in what quickly became known as The Great War gives an added resonance. The BBC’s Remembrance Week coverage will be extensive across TV, radio and online, with the Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance on Saturday evening and the Remembrance Sunday commemorations from the Cenotaph in Whitehall at the heart of our coverage. You can read full details of our plans on the Media Centre.

The BBC’s World War One season has now been running for 10 months. In that time we have offered a huge range of programmes – from documentaries to drama, from archive-based programmes to online guides. Our latest research tells us that we have reached nearly three quarters of the UK population with output specifically about the First World War. A survey for the independent think-tank British Future tells us that the BBC has been the single most important source for people to find out about the centenary. What is particularly encouraging is that despite the amount of coverage this year, the majority of people still want to know more. Although levels of understanding have risen, there is certainly an appetite for more discoveries.

That interest is very much reflected in our plans. In the coming weeks there will be programmes on Teenage Tommies, on the Indian soldiers who fought in the conflict and the soldier poets of the Somme. Special editions of Country File and Antiques Roadshow will tell stories from the war looking at its impact on life in Britain. There is new drama with The Passing Bells on BBC One, telling the story of the war through the eyes of two young men, whilst on Radio 4 the dramas Home Front and Tommies will continue to chart the course of the conflict. On BBC Four, we will begin a complete repeat screening of the seminal 1964 documentary series The Great War. And of course, next year we will mark the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli and in 2016 the centenaries of Jutland and the Somme.

So, as the commemorations take place this November, we at the BBC are aware that we are uniquely placed to help people remember the fallen and to build understanding about the conflict which gave birth to modern remembrance. It is something we will continue to do over the next four years, charting the course of the war which did so much to change how people thought and how people lived.

Adrian Van-Klaveren is Controller, Great War Centenary

See the World War One Centenary website
Read more blogs by Adrian on About the BBC

A summer with the World War One at Home tour

2014-10-06T09:04:07+00:00

Last weekend the BBC’s World War One at Home tour came to end in the Midlands with some 20,000 people attending BBC Learning’s flagship event held in the centre of Nottingham, working alongside the City Council and their Fields of Battle exhibition. A further 6000 people attended the final events of the summer in Derby. Executive Producer Moray London looks back on the tour.

For everybody involved in the World War One at Home production, the final weekend was somewhat of a bittersweet moment.

Sweet in that it marked the conclusion of an incredibly intense four months that kicked off in Ipswich at the end of May, and many months of planning planning and preparation before that. Producing face-to-face events involves a lot of early rises and long days, regardless of what the unpredictable British weather decides do.

And bitter in that the Derby event brought to an end what has been a really rewarding experience - for me and the teams that have worked on it, as well as the nearly 230,000 visitors we’ve welcomed since the tour started.

There have been countless stories of people who have been moved by things that they have learned or experienced at our events. People who have found out more about the impact of the war on their family history with the Imperial War Museum’s Lives of the First World War project, or children who have had taste of what life was like as a brand new recruit on the Army parade ground.

Creating opportunities for our audience to have these individual and tangible experiences relating to World War One was something we really wanted to achieve as part of this tour.

BBC Learning provides a range of fantastic online content about World War One through Bitesize to support children who are studying this topic, and their teachers and parents. But, for some, school education may not always lead to the interest and desire to find out more. That’s why we believe immersive experiences with education at the heart of them, like the World War One at Home tour, can be incredibly valuable. These events can bring life to a topic, providing hands-on and interactive experiences.

School-children have really enjoyed our activities. Teachers who’ve visited the site have requested some of the materials so they can be re-used in the classroom. Some families came back for a second day, even though they’d completed all the activities. Such was their children’s keenness to demonstrate a newfound knowledge of World War One.

For those who knew about World War One, there were often new perspectives to be discovered too, like learning that more soldiers died of infection than the being shot. Some young girls who attended our events were astonished by Katie Adie’s account of life as a woman before the outbreak of war.

In BBC Learning, we have a huge amount of experience at working with external partners, particularly around live events. We also knew that where the scale and ambition of the World War One at Home tour was concerned, partners would play a hugely significant part. We weren’t disappointed.

Over the course of the last four months, we’ve worked with dozens of partner organisations and hundreds of individual volunteers, all of whom have been willing to dedicate their time, effort and expertise for the benefit of our audience.

They’ve included:

The Royal College of Pathologists who ran the ‘blood and bugs’ hands on exhibit in a 20 metre purpose built Nissen hut looking at disease control and medical advances from 1914;
The Royal Signal Museum who provided working examples of early communications methods from radio telephones to Morse code activities - a big hit with children, and
The Royal Pigeon racing association who worked with their members all over the UK. Visitors wrote a message which the pigeon would carry back to its home loft a few miles away, while we showed live pictures of the pigeon arriving home and the message being read out. To tell children, who often take instant communication for granted, that this was the most reliable form of communication a 100 years ago really blew their minds.

Our tour is part of a much bigger World War One season to mark the centenary of the Great War, which is incredibly important for the BBC. It’s scale is unlike any other previous BBC season, with over 2500 hours of programming across television, radio and online, touching all of the BBC’s services.

In the context of this ambitious BBC season, our World One War tour was the most editorially ambitious series of events that BBC Learning has produced. Its scale has been significant, with 8 flagship events covering the length and breadth of the UK, led by BBC Learning, and 18 smaller scale events led by the BBC’s English Regions teams.

This ambition has only been realized by a genuine collaboration between BBC Learning and the BBC English Regions teams, working together and sharing assets. From a BBC Learning perspective, we’ve brought our expertise and resources for putting on large educational events. This has complemented the English Regions teams’ knowledge of their audience, and experience of engaging them.

In this way, I believe we have made a big contribution to the BBC’s centenary season, complementing the fantastic broadcast content and online resources, and providing individual and real learning experiences about World War One.

If you were one of people who attended our events, or if you have any thoughts at all on what the World War One at Home tour, I’d love to hear your comments below.

Moray London is Executive Producer, BBC Learning

Read about the first World War One at Home event in Woolwich back in July.

Our World War gets interactive

2014-08-14T08:00:00+00:00

Today we see the launch of a very exciting innovation, commissioned by BBC Learning, an experiment in immersive drama which is a world first – I want to use this blog to tell you more.

We have just passed the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One - a series of powerful commemoration events have reminded us of the sacrifices of those who went to fight and those who stayed behind, contributing to the war effort on the home front.

As you look at the photos of the soldiers who signed up, you can’t help but be struck by how young those involved were. As we look into their faces 100 years on we often ask ourselves one question; "What would it have felt like to have fought in WW1?" Answering that question was the challenge BBC Learning set itself when thinking about how we could use our new digital platform iWonder to support the major new BBC Three drama Our World War.

Working closely with the team who produced the main television drama, BBC Learning commissioned an entirely new format, an interactive fourth episode that puts audiences right at the heart of the action.

Set in High Wood, a particularly bloody battle of the Somme in 1916, the story follows a young corporal leading a small group of soldiers struggling to survive. Split over three acts, the interactive episode gives control of the corporal’s decisions over to the audience, challenging them to make choices that affect the lives of the men around them. These choices will change the course of the story, but they also carry hidden value as each decision is being measured as a series of scores that define how well each viewer performs as a leader.

Taking inspiration from the gaming and interactive media industry, including the now iconic Walking Dead and Operation Ajax, we wanted to experiment with creating a new format that could bring audiences even closer to the story. Audiences will have to make difficult decisions against the clock… and every second counts. We hope this mechanic will fully engage them in the story of these young men and also let them move seamlessly from viewer to participant, giving them an active role in the storytelling.

To create the interactive episode we have merged broadcast quality film footage with the visual grammar of gaming and animation in the form of digital “motion-comics”. By using techniques found in modern gaming experiences we have set out to create something very new, a hybrid between a TV programme and a game experience – an interactive drama.

This hugely innovative project is a BBC North based partnership between BBC Learning and Open Games teams working with MI, an interactive games agency based in Salford – you can read more about how that team developed this from my colleague Will Storer in the Open Games team who is writing a blog post tomorrow (Friday 15 August) for the BBC Internet Blog.

This is a real first for the BBC and we hope this pilot will inspire creative communities inside and outside the BBC to think up new ways of delivering drama to an audience who demand higher and higher levels of interactivity. I’d love to know what you think, check out the episode and please do leave me a comment below.

Tim Plyming is an Executive Producer for Science and History in BBC Learning

Play the interactive fourth episode of Our World War
Visit the BBC's World War One portal
Read Tim's blog A new BBC iPlayer collection: WW1 UNCUT
Read Marco Crivellari's blog about writing the interactive episode on the Writersroom website
Read how the interactive episode was designed and built

BBC Radio Lincolnshire's local WW1 drama: Leaving Home

2014-08-01T18:01:07+00:00

To mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War One, Radio Lincolnshire producer Michael Hortin has worked with two lecturers from University of Lincoln Conan Lawrence and Andrew Westerside on the production of three dramas for BBC Radio Lincolnshire. The scripts dramatise the lives of a local family in a series entitled 'Leaving Home'. In this post, Michael explains some of the background to the broadcasts.

Thirteen months ago we at BBC Radio Lincolnshire joined forces with the University of Lincoln to mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WWI by telling the story, through drama, of the Beechey Family from Lincolnshire.

All eight brothers served during the war, five of them were killed another left with life changing injuries. With many of their letters home surviving we felt we could produce something that had depth and would connect with people in the county.

The first part of the project was last Saturday, and a concert at the Arboretum in Lincoln. Situated 100 metres from the Beechey's home during WWI it was an obvious starting off point for us, as the mother Amy would have almost certainly taken time to walk around the public park and contemplate her loss.

The one hour performance charted the family story from 1914 to 1918 and was centered on a cast of actors representing the families 13 brothers and sisters and their mother. Musical support came from from the Royal Anglian Regimental Band, the Military Wives Choir of RAF College Cranwell and a piper from Scunthorpe and District Pipe Band.

Co-ordinating a production like that may sound a challenge. Well it was for our Directors, especially when you consider they only had three hour for a rehearsal and sound check.

Despite doubts over a generator, heat getting the better of one of the choir and a water shortage that led to me making a supermarket dash thirty minutes before the first show we pulled it off. In glorious sunshine the performances sparkled and moved the hundreds watching as eight of Amy Beechey's sons marched to war and only three returned. With uncanny timing as they came home the bells of Lincoln cathedral tolled, as if out of respect for the fallen.

Members of the cast of the Leaving Home radio drama

For most projects you would think that might be enough, but either ambitiously or foolishly we have more to come.

On Sunday and Monday we will hold a site specific performance in and around the church in the small village of Friesthorpe, with the same partners and cast. We chose it as the family lived there until 1912, because the father of the family was the vicar at the church. The first performance, to the villagers, will culminate in the recently restored church bells ringing for the first time in full for more than 100 years. With backing from BBC North a film will be produced of the performance and made available later this year. It also goes without saying that the drama and ceremony, like in Lincoln last week, will be broadcast live once again on BBC Radio Lincolnshire.

The next part of Leaving Home will then be an hour long radio play, telling the story of the oldest brother Barnard and his relationship with his mother Amy and one of his five sisters Edie. With two pupils from a local school joining to play the role of Edie and Bar in early life, It will be broadcast in full on the 4th of August.

A final important part of the Leaving Home project, thanks to the support of BBC Outreach and Social Responsibility, will be the screening of the film from Friesthorpe at a School near the Arboretum. In addition to showing off the performance to more people it will also help us cement an excellent relationship between the radio station and the community in the area which has been strengthened by this project.

Undoubtedly though a defining memory for me of the project came at dusk in Lincoln after the final performance of the day on Saturday. Two of Amy's grandchildren had travelled from across the country to watch it. As the sun set the actors, directors and myself met them a little nervous as to what they thought. We need not have worried, as explained they were moved and all the more proud of their family. Watching our actors in period costume, who portrayed the Beechey family, talking to her grandchildren 1914 didn't feel so far away as 100 years were briefly bridged.

Michael Hortin is a producer at BBC Radio Lincolnshire

Listen to clips from the production of Leaving Home and find out more about the live performances on the BBC Radio Lincolnshire website.

August 4th World War One Remembered on the BBC

2014-08-01T08:47:02+00:00

11pm, Tuesday August 4th 1914. Britain’s ultimatum to Germany expired and war was declared on Germany. Just hours earlier, the Daily Mirror took a combative stance; ‘We could not stand aside! Britain will not allow Germany’s fleet to batter France’s undefended coast’, it rallied. The Daily Telegraph reported that its readers should be shedding ‘tears of pride over the spectacle presented by the British race’; by contrast the next day’s Manchester Guardian feared that the country was facing “the greatest calamity that anyone living has known”.

Despite the headlines, the war in Europe must have seemed so far removed from the lives of ordinary men and women. Complex in its causes and without the immediacy of modern communication and media, this conflict must have appeared almost from nowhere that fateful August week, a rogue wave in a once calm sea. Looking forward to the August Bank Holiday, most believed it would be over quickly; that Germany would be given a ‘bloody nose’ and that would be the end of it. Of course, as we know now, nothing was further from the truth.

The conflict became known as the war to end all wars; millions died and millions more suffered physically and mentally. It changed the nature of society, warfare, global politics, economics and medicine, setting the course for the twentieth century. It changed how we live and how we think. It helped define our modern world and nearly all of us have some kind of family connection with what took place.

Marking the centenary throughout four years and tracking every aspect of the impact of the war, the BBC’s World War One Season across TV, Radio and online is our most ambitious to date. It will, I hope, leave an important legacy of understanding about this conflict - both for us today and, importantly, for generations to come.

Our season began at the start of the year. With landmark documentaries, drama, debate, unique archive, arts, live music and events, local stories, children’s programming, UK-wide World War One at Home events, iWonder online guides, educational initiatives and working with partners such as the IWM, we have already done much to examine, debate and illuminate the story of World War One. But there is much more to come and you can see on the BBC World War One website some of the programming highlights for August 2014 and beyond.

Of course, as we reach the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, we will take the time to reflect and to commemorate the fallen. Throughout the day on Monday August 4th, BBC Television, Radio and Online will be covering the day’s events.

On TV Huw Edwards will anchor the BBC’s coverage of national events throughout the day on August 4th, with Sophie Raworth presenting coverage from near Mons, Belgium.

World War One Remembered: Across the Commonwealth on BBC One (9.10am to 11.15am) will show the Service of Commemoration for the Commonwealth in Glasgow which will be attended by HRH The Duke of Rothesay (as the Prince of Wales is known in Scotland). There’ll be commentary from James Landale and reports from Anita Rani.

In the early evening, coverage will move to Belgium and to BBC Two for World War One Remembered: From the Battlefield (6.30pm onwards) for a Service of Remembrance at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission St Symphorien Military Cemetery in Mons, where TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be joined by HRH Prince Henry of Wales. And, as the nation nears the actual hour that war was declared,World War One Remembered: From Westminster Abbey on BBC Two (9.00pm onwards) will mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War with a candlelit vigil at 10.00pm attended by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall as well as covering the Lights Out moments around the country.

Throughout the day BBC News will be covering events on both the BBC News Channel and BBC World News as well as in the regional news programmes. Online, the BBC News website will offer live coverage of all the day’s events, and our dedicated World War One portal (www.bbc.co.uk/ww1) will bring together live updates on August 4th, as well as guides, timelines, programmes and more from the BBC’s WW1 season this year.

We will also be marking the day on BBC Radio stations. Radio 4 will broadcast the Glasgow service in full with commentary by James Naughtie and an extended edition of The World Tonight will include coverage from Westminster Abbey as well as reflecting all of the day’s events. Radio 5 live’s programmes will include Nicky Campbell presenting Breakfast from Glasgow and a special OB with Richard Bacon from the Imperial War Museum in London. Two Proms that evening, which are part of the 14-18 Now, WW1 Centenary Art Commissions, on Radio 3 will take as their starting point the events of 100 years ago. Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine programme will begin its WW1 in Real Time features whilst, also at lunchtime, Radio 4 will begin its ambitious four year drama, Home Front. And Radio 1 will be running the first of three programmes in its documentary series Radio 1’s Stories - Veterans: WW1 to Afghanistan presented by Greg James that evening at 9pm. Amanda Vickery examines the psychology of war in the UK edition of the BBC World Service debate series The War That Changed The World on Saturday at 7pm.

As communities across the UK mark the centenary, BBC Local Radio in England and BBC Radio Scotland, Wales and Ulster will be covering the day in many ways. And throughout our output we will be encouraging people to share their thoughts and reflections using the hashtag #remember.

The full schedules for the day can be found on the BBC World War One website. Please do join us in whatever way you can to help commemorate and remember both the sacrifices and the achievements of the First World War. I very much hope it will be a day which inspires fresh reflections, both shared and individual.

Adrian Van-Klaveren is Controller, Great War Centenary

WW1: The War That Changed The World

2014-07-31T15:23:55+00:00

Recording The War That Changed The World at Imperial War Museum, London.

Sarajevo, Dresden and now London. The BBC World Service in partnership with the British Council has now recorded three of the ten debates it is holding around the world over the next year to uncover the global legacy of WW1 - the war that changed the world. The series involves leading historians discussing different subjects - the psychology of war, the new mechanics of killing, the effect on nationalism and on borders; on families and politics. There are three presenters: historian Amanda Vickery; and BBC journalists Razia Iqbal and Allan Little.

Most importantly it tackles each subject from the view of different nations.

In Sarajevo Allan brought together Serb and Bosnian historians in front of an audience at the War Theatre named such as it was as it was founded during the siege of Sarajevo 20 years ago. It was an event where history was indeed with us in every word. We then moved onto Dresden and historians in Germany discussed the effect of being blamed for the war and whether that blame was fair. We will go on to discuss the legacy of war in Turkey, India, France, Russia, Kenya, Jordan and the USA. Each country has a different experience and a different memory of this war.

What has struck me at every event so far is the way WW1 is so deeply entwined with the world as it is now. It's not part of history but part of the present. At the hugely impressive newly laid out Imperial War Museum - the venue for our latest debate - there have been lengthy queues for the new WW1 gallery. Our subject for debate was the psychology of war - what makes us fight and what the legacy was. Many people came forward to speak of the effect of war on those who fought but also the legacy - the pain - passed on to each succeeding generation. The "intense emotional labour" as historian Joanna Burke put it for those left looking after those who took part.

The centenary of a war that cost the lives of millions around the world, which changed history for ever and brought new and unimagined scenes of horror is not one to be dealt with lightly. There is though a very different reality for those in the UK to many others around the world. Here there can appear a romantic almost nostalgic tone as if this was a war of poetry and poppies. Something the excellent iWonder-guides online also put paid to, but the World Service is fundamentally about chronicling the age we live in. It offers a place where people can tell their story without fear or prejudice. It often makes uncomfortable listening; more often inspiring listening. It's also a place to debate ideas and most importantly to hear other perspectives. And as Mandela said, how can you know yourself if you don't know your own history? And increasingly, knowing our own history means understanding the World's story not just our own country's.

Much of our global audience is young. For them the details of this war are not easily available. There are few war memorials in many of the countries who fought in this war. But fight they did with over a million and a half men from India taking part. There were battles in Benin, China and the massive Mesopotamian front - what is now Iraq. And the legacy of this war - the national boundaries it changed, the protectorates and perhaps most of all the lasting impact on those millions who took part in it is something which affects lives now. That's why we record live debates with live audiences about events 100 years ago.

Steve Titherington is Senior Commissioning Editor, BBC World Service

The UK edition of The War That Changed The World: The Psychology of War broadcasts on the BBC World Service at 7pm on Saturday 2nd August.
For more information and to listen to the previous debates visit bbc.co.uk/worldservice
Discover more about the BBC's World War One programming online.
Follow @BBCWW1 on Twitter.
Read Steve Titherington's blog about the World Service #Freedom2014 season published in January 2014.

World War One at Home in Woolwich

2014-07-11T07:22:36+00:00

Somehow, and I’m not quite sure how, I forgot that when I was younger I was obsessed about the First World War. Happy then was I to be reminded as I was invited to attend the ‘preview day’ of the World War One at Home event at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, South London on Friday June 27.

As I sat in a marquee and watched the three actors from the Ministry of Fun play out fictional scenes from a whistle stop tour of 1914-1918, I was reminded of watching ‘How We Used To Live’ a school’s history programme that dramatised the lives of families from past eras, and I recall that when it came to the 1914 episode I was hooked and wanted to find out more about The Great War.

I think however, my initial interest was sparked by a school project, so it was heart-warming to see children from local primary schools taking their own interest in World War One as they witnessed this, the debut show from Ministry of Fun and special guests.

Entertaining, informative and educational, the show mixed hard facts with fictional scenes and kept the children engaged throughout. Larry Lamb spoke to Girl Guide leader Janey about the role of children (guides and scouts) on the home front, which was full of surprises, plus handy hints on what to do with a big stick. Sadly, I didn’t get picked to put Mr Lamb’s arm in a sling, which was a bit disappointing, but I kept a stiff upper lip – or ‘emergency smile’ as it was known amongst the brave scouts and guides.

The next special guest was science presenter Steve Mould who had a number of fascinating experiments relating to the war, including something about Zeppelins and how they used hydrogen in the balloons, which is flammable apparently…

As the actors returned for the finale, I decide the marching on the spot element of the show was too much exercise for me, and so decided to have a wander round the site.

The open event which takes place the following day (coinciding with the anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand) is the first of eight large scale events to be held around the UK, seven smaller events have already taken place attracting over 40,000 visitors.

There is a lot to take in. From message sending via pigeon, to trying your hand at being a war reporter, to poppy making, to cracking Morse Code missives.

There is also an assault course, run by the terrifying Regimental Sergeant Major Hudson (or Sir) who is in charge of shouting at people. He puts the children through their paces, and, frankly, the fear of God into me so I take a seat in the ‘Records Office’. There I get talking to the gentlemen from the Imperial War Museum who are partnering the BBC in the Lives Of The First World War project. This project is an online archive collating data from members of the public as they search for ancestors who took part in the war. They explain how BBC programmes have been acting as a trigger and people are then going online and researching family members.

I’m encouraged to have a go myself, and so type in my grandfather’s name, and with some expert help, find him - Sergeant Charles Macro - and also uncover his Royal Naval records. These include details of hospital treatment for a hand injury, and I suddenly remember how he used to keep the shrapnel they removed from his hand in a box in his bedroom, and how I would always ask to look at it when I visited him. Then it hits me just how important it is to collect this information for future generations, as events turn all too rapidly from memory to history.

The World War One at Home enclosure formed part of a bigger event at the Barracks for Armed Forces Day. “It’s an important day for us” says Nick, the officer in charge of the Morse Code tent, who was sad he could not attend the open BBC event as he would be marching in Chelsea in the aforementioned Armed Forces Day celebrations. It makes me realise that as we remember those who risked and gave their lives in the First World War, that lives are still being risked, and lost, one hundred years after the ‘war to end all wars’.

The BBC World War One At Home Tour heads to The Wolverhampton & Black Country Show this weekend, 12 and 13 July 2014 (10.30am – 6pm). For a full list of BBC World War One At Home Tour dates and venues as well as World War One programming on the BBC visit bbc.co.uk/ww1.

Jennifer Macro is a Digital Content Producer, About the BBC Blog and Website.

Find dates for the World War 1 at Home Roadshow here
Discover World War 1 at Home
Read the blog by Katherine Campbell on Mapping WW1
Further details can be found on the WW1 Homepage
Follow @BBCWW1 on Twitter

Radio 3's Live in Concert from Sarajevo

2014-07-02T16:40:57+00:00

The newly rebuilt VijeÄnica, Sarajevoâs City Hall.

Last Saturday, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a concert via the Eurovision network given by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra from the VijeÄnica in Sarajevo. The event marked 100 years since the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Duchess Sophie. In this post Live in Concert presenter Sara Mohr Pietsch reflects on her return visit to the city.

When it comes to musical ambassadors of peace, the Vienna Philharmonic isn’t the first orchestra that springs to mind – the Simon Bolívar Youth Orchestra or West Eastern Divan are more obvious beacons of artistic hope. Firmly rooted in the past, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (VPO) is one of the sole survivors of Austria-Hungary, an empire whose collapse began with a shot fired at Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28th June, 1914.

But last Saturday, 100 years on, with conductor Franz Welser-Möst at its helm, Vienna’s historic orchestra made a symbolic gesture when it performed in the very place where the assassin Gavrilo Princip unwittingly ushered in a century of war. Once again – with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) beaming the concert to almost 60 TV and radio stations, including BBC Radio 3 - the eyes and ears of Europe were on Sarajevo.

For Sarajevans, the most important thing about this concert wasn’t so much the VPO or the WW1 anniversary, but rather the hall where it took place. Just a few hundred yards along the river-front, to the east of the street corner by the Latin Bridge where the Archduke fell, stands the newly rebuilt Vijećnica, Sarajevo’s City Hall. Built under Austro-Hungarian rule to a neo-Moorish design, the Vijećnica was Bosnia’s national library until 1992, when both the building and two million of its priceless manuscripts were burned in a Serbian mortar attack during the siege of Sarajevo. Now, with the help of 9 million Euros from the European Union, it’s been resurrected as a symbol of national hope. It’s not a concert hall, but there was no more fitting place to stage the event.

My last visit to Sarajevo was ten years ago. Then, burned-out cars lined the roadsides and Viennese stone facades were pock-marked with bullet holes. Today, the streets are full of brand new cars, most of the bullet holes have been filled in and you no longer have to watch out for falling masonry from derelict buildings. But Sarajevo is still a city overshadowed by its past: the surrounding forest hills are dotted with white clusters of gravestones, and locals still talk about their lives in terms of the war, rather than the peace which followed.

Radio 3 producer Janet Tuppen and I arrived in Bosnia’s capital on Thursday to record interviews for our live broadcast of Saturday’s concert. The air was humid and threatened rain, which eventually came in torrents and wrecked our plans of recording outside. Instead, we postponed our interview with Allan Little until the following morning, when the sun came out. Allan is a BBC correspondent who was in Sarajevo during the devastating siege. He talked about the significance of the Vijećnica, the difficulties faced by the current Bosnian government, and the country’s endemic poverty.

Our next visit was to the National Theatre, an impressive municipal building on what’s now called Susan Sontag Place (a mark of respect for the American who pioneered theatre in Sarajevo during the siege). There, we met Ivan Šarić, an opera singer who performed in Saturday’s concert as part of the National Theatre’s Opera Chorus. Ivan has a deep bass voice and a story like so many others of his generation: born in Sarajevo, he fled the war as a child with his family, moving to Sweden and returning to Bosnia as a teenager. He’s a charming, energetic and positive young man, hard-working and comfortable in the familial atmosphere of the opera company, but he shared his frustration that they can only afford two productions in rep each season.

From there, we walked to Hotel Europe (by reputation, Bosnia’s finest) for a press conference hosted by the concert’s production partners: the VPO, EBU, EU and mayor of Sarajevo, Ivo Komšić. Amid diplomatic pleasantries, Clemens Hellsberg (violinist and Chairman of the VPO) spoke passionately about a musician’s obligation to offer an invitation of peace and reconciliation through art. He and Komšić expressed their disappointment at the notable absence of officials from Bosnia's Republika Srpska.

Our final stop was the Vijećnica itself, for the dress rehearsal of the concert in the building’s hexagonal atrium, its stone and marble colonnades decorated with colourful Moorish designs. Under a stained glass ceiling, the Vienna Philharmonic performed Haydn, Schubert, Brahms, Ravel and Berg to an invited audience. Afterwards, conductor Franz Welser-Möst, in Sarajevo for the first time, spoke about the buzz around the concert – every taxi driver he met knew about it.

To my mind, the best way to get to know a city is to walk its streets at dusk; so, at the end of a long day of recording, Janet and I headed into the ancient heart of Sarajevo. The Baščaršija is one of the remaining vestiges of Ottoman rule: a tightly packed grid of cobbled bazaar streets, lined with wooden shop fronts jostling for attention. They sell tourist trinkets, Turkish rugs, copperware and Bosnia’s answer to fast food: ćevapčići sausages and sour cream in a bread wrap. On Friday night, the streets thronged with people, mostly locals taking an evening stroll or milling in the courtyard of the central mosque. Sarajevo felt vibrant and at peace.

I fell asleep that night to the call of the muezzin from one of the pencil-thin minarets which pepper the city, and woke to the peal of church bells: sounds symbolic of Sarajevo’s embodiment of coexistence. Ironic, then, that the city should be so in need of a gesture of solidarity and peace from the VPO, a renowned inheritor of Austro-Hungarian culture.

Live in Concert from Sarajevo forms part of Radio 3's exploration of music from World War One. Janet Tuppen wrote about the programming on the About the BBC Blog last week.
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra concert is available to listen via BBC iPlayer.
The BBC News Live Coverage of 28 June 1914: Archduke assasinated and other World War One coverage is available via the BBC's History and bbc.co.uk/ww1.
Follow Sara Mohr Pietsch on Twitter.

Radio remembers WW1

2014-06-26T08:58:20+00:00

The seismic events of 1914-1918 changed everything. As the fighting took hold pitting nation against nation, some of the warring countries, in parallel, were pioneering the technology that would usher in the audio-visual age.

A hundred years on, as broadcasting moves into a digital world, a different technological revolution is at the heart of BBC radio’s marking of the Centenary of World War One.

Radio excels at exploring big ideas – but it is also wonderful at capturing powerful emotions. Over the next four years, you will be able to collect and keep many of our programmes bringing fresh perspectives on this war.

Our ambition is to work in almost real time, tracking the chronology of the war over four years, weaving together factual programmes, drama and music.

Radio 4 has kicked off with Christopher Clark setting the scene in the European capitals that were soon to become enemies in Month of Madness.

The chronology is picked up by Margaret MacMillan in 1914: Day by Day. For the following six weeks she will use only contemporaneous records to chart the rapid twists and turns that led from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the outbreak of war.

Twelve leading cartoonists of today have been commissioned by 14-18 Now to reflect on Margaret’s series in their own unique, visual way – we’ll be posting these online for you to enjoy.

As we move to mark the outbreak of war on 4 August, our specially commissioned original drama Home Front, will broadcast in 580 episodes between now and 2018.

Created by award-winning writer Katie Hims, Home Front is one of our biggest ever commissions. It will chronicle life at home for “the 41 million who did not fight but whose hearts were pinned on those who did”, as editor Jessica Dromgoole describes it.

From October, the story moves to the frontline with the launch of Tommies, a narrative of the war itself, told in a series of plays prominently featuring a Signals Section, Lahore Division, Indian Army – something that has never been done before.

These two complementary, fictional accounts will allow some of the leading radio dramatists of today to explore the experience of a generation caught up in tumultuous world events 100 years ago.

Then there are the real voices of those who served but are no longer with us.

You can hear them in their own words later this year, as the sound archives of the BBC and Imperial War Museums are combined for the first time in Voices of the First World War introduced by Dan Snow. It’s a new oral history crafted from their testimony, and will be available online, in perpetuity for us all.

Culture and music will be an inspiration on radio as we explore how artists, musicians and writers reacted to the disaster that befell their countries.

Look out for Music in the Great War on Radio 3 - as Chris Clark and Margaret MacMillan dissect the politics on Radio 4 - Radio 3 programmes will explore the artistic and intellectual ferment of the great cities at the time. Soldier and composer Ivor Gurney has a special place and Alan Shypton will chart how the origins of jazz go back to the First World War.

Music from this turbulent period will also be reflected in the Proms this summer and a Vienna Philharmonic’s special concert in Sarajevo on 28 June 2014 will be carried live by Radio 3.

By contrast, popular song will be found on Radio 2 with the return later in the year of the acclaimed Ballads series, specially commissioned to mark the centenary.

And the Jeremy Vine Show will be presenting events as they happened at the front line, in a weekly news format which will follow the first six months of the fighting.

Meanwhile BBC Radio 1’s documentary strand, Radio 1’s Stories, will broadcast three special programmes in August. Presented by Greg James, the documentaries will explore the parallels between the experiences of those who fought for their country between 1914-18 and the present day.

On the Asian Network and on Radio 4, programmes will delve into new research on the experience of those who fought from the sub-continent and from around the globe.

This Centenary has inspired the most ambitious season ever launched across the BBC. As part of that, our work with scholars, museums and communities and with radio programme makers, writers and artists will, I hope, create a unique and enduring collection of stories in sound that can be heard for many years to come.

Jane Ellison is Radio 4 Commissioning Editor.

Find out more about BBC progammes marking the centenary of World War One on the BBC Media Centre website.

Radio 3's Music in the Great War

2014-06-25T07:27:09+00:00

In Radio 3’s two week season Music in the Great War from 23 June – 6 July we are following the story of World War One through the music and culture of the time and considering the immediate and wider impact of the war on the international classical music world.

The Western music world in 1914 was an international arts scene with soloists, conductors and composers criss-crossing the globe: Rachmaninov performing in the USA, British composers studying in Germany, Stravinsky, Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes in Paris, Wagner revered in opera houses worldwide, and Viennese operettas attracting audiences in theatres in Russia, the USA and Britain. In August 1914 this came to an end.

As lead producer for the season my role has been to research and co-ordinate the music being played across the two weeks. It has been interesting to reflect on the effects of increased nationalism in all warring countries: how initially in 1914 there were increased calls to play only music from allied nations. French opera disappeared from the stages of Berlin; Wagner disappeared from Moscow and St Petersburg; German musicians were expelled from the American orchestras, who until that time had drawn heavily on musicians of German origin; British musicians discussed whether or not to boycott German music and how to nurture British music. Our series consultant, Dr Kate Kennedy, drew my attention to the debate raging in London via the Musical Times journal from 1914, while the archivists of the professional orchestras in New York, Boston, Berlin and Vienna have been helpful in providing information about concert life in those cities in the war years.

I've been discovering the stories of musicians unwittingly caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time: British and Canadian citizens in Germany who, in August 1914, were rounded up and interned at Ruhleben racecourse outside Berlin, and similarly men of German and Austian heritage interned in London at Alexandra Palace. The British Library and the Imperial War Museum hold moving accounts of their frustrations and determination to try and stay motivated, and in each internment camp they created an orchestra that gave concerts for all internees. We're recreating some of the music heard in these extraordinary circumstances in a concert given by the BBC Concert Orchestra on 26 June, with the actor Alex Wyndham (from the BBC series The Crimson Field).

I've also been rediscovering music by long forgotten names who are part of the lost generation: British and Australian composers William Denis Browne, FS Kelly and Ernest Farrar, and the German, Rudi Stephan. I find that hearing their music is a vivid reminder of them as individuals. We have no recorded interviews with these people, but instead we can bring them back to the present through their music. It is impossible to guess the directions their careers would have taken, which in itself is a poignant reminder of the lost potential from these artists.

It’s these personal tragedies that I have found the most moving, particularly when listening to some of the heartfelt music written by those whose family members died, including Arthur Bliss who lost his clarinettist brother Kennard, and Louis Vierne whose 18-year-old son and his brother Rene, also a musician, both died.

One of the highlights of the season will be a concert on 28 June, when the Vienna Philharmonic performs on this historically significant day, 100 years after the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo together with a choir from Sarajevo. This collaborative event is being held as a concert for peace and reconciliation.

In taking this journey of rediscovery of music in the Great War, through individual stories and broader reflection, I hope that listeners can hear for themselves the impact of the war on music and culture world-wide.

Janet Tuppen is Lead Producer, WW1 Season, BBC Radio 3

Read also, Mapping WW1 At Home;
How Lizzie the elephant and 'Little Khaki George' helped the war effort;
1914: 100 years on;
And Creating a digital archive of World War One lives
See the press release and read about A Summer of commemoration on the Media Centre