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Before WWI, little provision was made for the burial of the war dead. Soldiers were often unceremoniously dumped in a mass grave; officers shipped home to be buried in local cemeteries.The great cemeteries of WWI came about as a result of the efforts of one inspired visionary. In 1914, Fabian Ware, at 45, was too old to enlist. Instead, he joined the Red Cross, working on the frontline in France. There he was horrified by the ignominious end to the lives of many of the soldiers who, buried...

Whether in wartime or peace, tales of love, laughter and hardship from the girls in the Rowntrees factory in Yorkshire“On a warm Monday morning in 1932, just two days after leaving school, fourteen-year-old Madge was about to join her nine brothers and sisters at Rowntree’s. The smell of chocolate was in the air but as she walked up the road, her footsteps slowed at the daunting thought of what lay ahead…”From the 1930s through to the 1980s, as Britain endured war, depression, hardship and...

This is Joan’s story, one of four stories from The Sugar Girls.During the Blitz and the years of rationing, the Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but the Tate & Lyle factory was more than just a workplace – it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of East London.‘Joan had joined Tate & Lyle expressly for the social life, and she was determined to make the most of it. She could see that her old friend Peggy already...

This is Lilian’s story, one of four stories from The Sugar Girls. During the Blitz and the years of rationing, the Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but the Tate & Lyle factory was more than just a workplace – it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of East London.‘When Lilian Tull came to Tate & Lyle shortly after the end of the war, she was older than most new arrivals. A lanky, fairhaired woman of 23, she...

Map best viewed on a tablet device.An account of the Spanish civil war which portrays the struggles of the war, as well as discussing the wider implications of the revolution in the Republican zone, the emergence of brutal dictatorship on the nationalist side and the extent to which the Spanish war prefigured World War II.No war in modern times has inflamed the passions of both ordinary people and intellectuals in the way that the conflict in Spain in 1936 did. The Spanish Civil War is burned...

‘I do not want to die. The thought that we may be cut off from each other is so terrible and that our babe may grow up without my knowing her and without her knowing me. It is difficult to face. Know through all your life that I loved you and baby with all my heart and soul, that you two sweet things were just all the world to me’Captain Charlie May was killed, aged 27, in the early morning of 1st July 1916, leading the men of ‘B Company’, 22nd Manchester Service Battalion (the Manchester Pals)...