World War One

In 1918, Annie May Martin was a telegraphist working in France. Her role with the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was to pass messages in morse code between front line troops and London. In an archive interview, she looks back on her life as a signaller, why they were called the ‘blue and white angels,’ and remembers the hostility she experienced at the hands of French civilians. Her reflections are included in IWM’s Lives of the First World War, launched today to create a digital memorial to mark the lives of more than eight million people in WWI. Project Manager Melanie Donnelly joins Jane Garvey to talk about the scale of the task ahead.

The Newcastle women's football champions who were unbeaten during the war, the Hull shop that bore the brunt of anti-German riots and 'Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag', the Welsh hit that boosted morale on the battlefield.

Over a million Indian soldiers fought alongside the British Army during WW1, and thousands were nursed at the Royal Brighton Pavilion. Over 700 beds were provided in the midst of the building's Regency splendour.

Kate Adie joins in a tribute to Elsie Knocker & Mairi Chisholm, famous nursing heroines of the frontline, and the price a Bristol family paid when their horses were commandeered for the war effort.

How a German spy raised suspicions in Edinburgh; letters home show how a gardener from Gloucestershire's Cowley Manor found frontline life; Lizzie the Elephant does her bit for the war effort in Sheffield. Discover hundreds more WW1 At Home stories at bbc.co.uk/ww1

How a Scarborough home was immortalised in WW1 propaganda, defending the Irish coast from U-boats and how the scouts of Hertfordshire rose to the wartime challenge. Discover hundreds more stories from WW1 At Home at bbc.co.uk/ww1

Three WW1 home front stories: how German spies were executed at the Tower of London, England's Bravest St & production of Birmingham's famous Thunderer whistle. Discover more WW1 At Home stories at bbc.co.uk/ww1

For Radio 4, Francine Stock explores how artists responded to the outbreak of war on either side of the conflict and hears how the publishing world fed the appetite for women's popular fiction.

For Radio 4, Francine Stock explores the music and images of popular culture in Britain, France, Russia and Germany, as fiery patriotism flares and fades in the first weeks and months of war.

Francine Stock begins her exploration of the culture of the Great War in 1914 with the mobilization of the word. For more than 40 years the next war to come had been a staple of fiction. England had been invaded, bombed and conquered before a shot had ever been fired in anger and now the war was upon us. What unfolded in the first weeks in the towns of villages of Belgium turned the war into a cultural struggle for survival and intellectuals and authors were soon seen as crucial to the war effort. From Arnold Bennett to Israel Zangwill, the literary giants of Edwardian England went to war. Producer Mark Burman. Part of WW1 on the BBC - bbc.co.uk/ww1

How a night out to Manchester’s Palace Theatre in 1914 was to change forever the lives of Kitty and her young husband Percy Morter. Looking back, Kitty describes the moment when music hall star Vesta Tilley put her hand on her husband’s shoulder and recruited him to the war effort. The archive interview from 1964 is being made available today through World War One At Home, a BBC and Imperial War Museums partnership. Jane Garvey is joined by Imperial War Museum curator Laura Clouting to talk about the projects. Part of World War One on the BBC. Discover more at bbc.co.uk/ww1

From BBC Radio 4: During the First and Second World War at least 1700 nurses gave their lives in service, yet there is no official memorial to them. Jenni Murray talks to Yvonne McEwen, a historian at Edinburgh University and a former nurse who is leading a campaign for an official memorial for the nurses who served in the wars.

From BBC Radio 4 Responsibility for the Great War has been a fierce battle for meaning ever since 1914. Michael Portillo examines how the history of the origins of the Great War and the issue of war guilt has, since 1914, frequently been a fierce battle for meaning with high stakes. Discover more at bbc.co.uk/ww1

From BBC Radio 4: How the war shaped the lives of a generation of women. While women in their thousands volunteered for war service and the number of women employed went up by more than a million by 1918, what power did women really achieve outside the home and how lasting was it? Joining Jenni Murray, Baroness Shirley Williams on the war's impact on the generation of her mother, Testament of Youth author Vera Brittain; writer and broadcaster Kate Adie; Joanna Bourke, Professor of History at Birkbeck College; and cultural historian Professor Maggie Andrews, University of Worcester. We also hear from Dr Jennian Geddes about the work of doctors Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson who established and ran the only British army hospital staffed entirely by women, treating wounded soldiers. Part of World War One on the BBC. Discover more at bbc.co.uk/ww1

Michael Portillo reveals how our understanding of the war has been distorted through a century of intellectualising, interpretation and misinterpretation. In this first episode Michael Portillo examines how the German invasion of neutral Belgium in August 1914 transformed Britain's war into a moral cause. Part of World War One on the BBC. Discover more at bbc.co.uk/ww1