125: Those They Left Behind

In this episode we look at the stories of the families left behind by the casualties of the Great War. How did they cope? What happened to their sons in World War 2? We hear from writer Vera Brittain about how she felt when her fiancée died and what happened when she opened the parcel that contained his bloodstained kit. And we look at the story of Philip Wooding who died from shrapnel wounds a year after the Armistice but cannot be commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. We also examine the story of a father and son who died in different wars and are buried just a few yards away from each other, with the same family inscription on their headstone.