The great war The people's story : Episode one: Reg, Alan, James and Dorothy.

This accessible series dramatises the diaries, letters and memoires of people directly involved in WWI either as serving military personnel or civillians. There are four individuals featured in this programme. Reginald Evans, born in 1888, served as Lance Corporal with the 1st Hertfordshire Regiment, then after recovering from a serious injury, he joined the Royal Sussex Regiment. Reg was separated from his mother by poverty and grew up in an orphanage; he was working in a brush factory when war broke out. He wrote to his mother every few days. Alan Lloyd was born in 1889 in Birmingham and served in the Royal Field Artillery. Alan was engaged and married before he went to France. Dorothy Lawrence decided that she wanted to be a war correspondence; no newspaper would acccept her so she went to Paris as a tourist. She disguised herself as a soldier and went to the war zone with forged papers. Reg arrives at Calais and ends up fighting at Ypres. James dropped out of Oxford to enlist. Dorothy cycled all the way from Amiens to the front. A middle-aged soldier, advised her to lie low. It took several days for mail to arrive. Alan's first posting was in Ypres in the thick of the combat; just as the casualties were mounting. James was also in the midst of the shelling. Reg was volunteered on a reconnaissance mission before another push; he risked his life and received a commendation. The strain begins to tell; soldiers begin to comment on their 'nerves' and the impact of living amongst the unburried dead (James is latter diagnosed with shell-shock and invalided out of the army). Alan finds out that he is a father to a baby boy. James and Reg find themselves enduring another Christmas at the Front. Dorothy is arrested and after 4 months is released back to the UK on condition that she did not divulge her story (she passed the rest of her life in a psychiatric hospital). Christmas 1915, Alan gets home leave. Reg is shot in the face.