Showing titles in 20th Century

Bristol 194. As the clouds of war grow bleaker both at home and abroad, the Tobacco Girls are determined to do their bit for king and country. To that end Maisie Miles and Bridget Milligan become voluntary ambulance drivers. As well as coping with the frequent air raids, Maisie is kept on her toes with three new junior employees, one of whom is particularly testing. Bridget’s heart becomes torn between family loyalty and Lyndon O’Neill III, the man she loves. Meanwhile Phyllis Harvey has joined the WAAF, opting to serve overseas whilst trying to escape her past.

Sicily, 1943. Three American women, all nurses in the Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron, are determined to do all they can for their country. Vita is fun-loving, Dot shy and sweet-natured, and Evelyn practical and determined, but for all their differences, a life of military service pulls the three together as firm friends. When they’re selected for a daring mission, the women are proud to play their part. But disaster strikes when their plane crash-lands behind enemy lines in occupied Albania. finally find their way home?

December, 1940. Christmas is coming, but the season of goodwill is overshadowed by the death and destruction of the Blitz. In London's Covent Garden, where the glamour of theatreland rubs shoulders with the bustle of the capital's biggest fruit and vegetable market, the war has closed the theatres and ruined the market trade. When a daylight air raid hits the Prince Albert Theatre in Drury Lane, rescuers find a man dying in the wreckage. But it wasn't the bomb that's ending his life - he's been stabbed, and with his dying breath he whispers what sounds like a fragmented confession.

Charlie’s experiences at the Battle of Kohima and the months he spent lost in the remote jungles of Nagaland during the Second World War are now history. Home and settled on a farm in Norfolk and newly married to Claire, he is one of the lucky survivors. Starting a family and working the land seem the best things a man can be doing. But a chasm exists between them. Memories flood Charlie’s mind; at night, on rain-slicked roads and misty mornings in the fields, the past can feel more real than the present.

In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, Lanny Budd’s financial acumen and his marriage into great wealth enable him to continue the lifestyle he has always enjoyed. But the devastation the collapse has wrought on ordinary citizens has only strengthened Lanny’s socialist ideals. In Germany to visit relatives, Lanny encounters a disturbing atmosphere of hatred and jingoism. But Lanny’s gravest fear is the threat a national socialist government poses to the German Jewish family of Hansi, the musician husband of Lanny’s sister, Bess.

After renowned London fashion designer Cressida Westcott loses both her home and her design house in the Blitz, she has nowhere to go but the family manor house she fled decades ago. She arrives with nothing but the clothes she stands in, at a loss as to how to rebuild her business from a quaint country village. Before long, Cressida’s spirit and ambition galvanises the village group into action, and they find themselves mending wedding dresses not only for local brides, but for brides across the country.

Teddy’s job is to process visa applications, and by 1939, refugees from Nazi-conquered Poland, Austria, and other countries are desperate to secure safe passage to America. As Hitler sweeps through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Holland, the screws tighten and law after virulent law is passed to threaten the lives, indeed the very existence of the Jewish people. When Teddy and his girlfriend Sara are introduced to an orphaned young girl named Katy, who has been abandoned on the grounds of a nursery school, they agree to adopt her.

Peggy Serrano couldn’t wait for her best friend to come home from the war. But the Jimmy Barnett who returns is much different from the Jimmy who left, changed so drastically by his experience as a medic in Europe that he can barely function. When he attempts the unthinkable, his parents check him into the VA hospital. Peggy determines to help the Barnetts unravel what might have happened to send their son over the edge. She starts by contacting Jimmy’s war buddies, trying to identify the mysterious woman in the photo they find in Jimmy’s belongings.

Following the death of her father, Ruby Swift and husband, Archie, finally move back into Ashland Hall. As the Great War rages, fathers and sons take the king's shilling and head off to fight the unknown enemy, not knowing what horrors lie ahead. With Ned Kincaid in the navy, Archie signs up to the volunteer constabulary and nurses Anna Cassidy and Ellie Harrington enlist to do their bit for king and country. It’s not long before the true cost of war is brought closer to home.

Paris, June 1940. The Nazi occupation of Paris begins. Detective Eddie Giral - a survivor of the last World War - watches helplessly on as his world changes forever. But there is something he still has control over. Finding whoever is responsible for four murdered refugees: the unwanted dead, forgotten amid the headlines. To do so, he must tread carefully between the Occupation and the Resistance, all the while becoming whoever he must be to survive in this new and terrible order descending on his home.

Penang, 1939. Sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton is a loner. Half English, half Chinese and feeling neither, he discovers a sense of belonging in an unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip shows his new friend around his adored island of Penang, and in return Endo trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such friendship comes at a terrible price.

September, 1940. Three women of the Checquy, the secret organization tasked with protecting Britain from supernatural threats, stand in the sky above London and see German aircraft approach. Forbidden by law to interfere, all they can do is watch as their city is bombed. Until Pamela breaks all the rules and brings down a Nazi bomber with her bare hands. The three resolve to tell no one about it, but they soon learn that a crew member is missing from the downed bomber. Charred corpses are discovered in nearby houses and it becomes apparent that the women have unwittingly unleashed a monster.

Nuneaton, 1935. Kathy has grown up at Treetops home for children, where Sunday and Tom Branning have always cared for her as one of their own. She enjoys her life at Treetops Manor, surrounded by her beloved horses, and with a future as a nurse ahead of her, she could wish for nothing more. Her foster sister Livvy is not as driven as Kathy. Sunday is keen to see both her girls married, but Livvy has no intentions of settling down and would much rather spend time with her friends. When Kathy falls for the wrong man, her ambitions are soon forgotten as she embarks on a secret affair.

Liverpool, 1915. Martha Rossi lives in a tenement with her husband and their five children. Despite working all the hours she can, the family doesn't have much money. So when Martha’s 14-year-old son, Joe, proudly enlists to fight for his country just to earn his mother an extra shilling, Martha is horrified. Despite her pleas and protests, Joe is dispatched to France within weeks. Unbeknown to them all, Joe’s act of selfless heroism will have huge implications for Martha and all the family.

Mattie is a woman with a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present. During the Women’s Suffrage Campaign she was a militant. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, gave speeches, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill, and nothing - nothing - since then has had the same depth, the same excitement. Now in middle age, she is still looking for a fresh mould into which to pour her energies.

March, 1941. World War Two is well underway and the Blitz is taking its toll on Central London with bombs raining down almost every night. Inspector Coburg and his trusted Sergeant Lampson are just recovering from the devastating bomb attack on the Café de Paris when they get a call asking them to go to the disused Lord's Underground station. Once there, they are taken to see the body of a man on the former platform. He's been beaten to death by blows on the back of his head, by what Dr Welbourne believes to have been a cricket bat.

West Yorkshire, 1914. Newly married to Noah Jackson, Beth is happily content working on her family's market stall while Noah fulfils his dreams of being a teacher. When war erupts, Beth's peaceful life is shattered by events beyond her control. Noah enlists to fight alongside his brothers. A devastating accident occurs that changes all their lives. Once a loving home, Beaumont Farm becomes Beth's responsibility.

1939: On the eve of war, young English heiress Grace Grey travels from London to the wilderness of Tasmania. Coaxed out of her shell by the attentions of her Irish neighbour, Daniel - Grace finally learns to live. 1975: Artist Willow Hawkins, and her new husband, Ben, can't believe their luck when an anonymous benefactor leaves them a house on the remote Tasmanian coast. 2004: Libby Andrews has always been sheltered from the truth behind her father Ben's death.

In a dusty postwar summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life?

One of the best-selling and most famous sagas of the last four decades, The Shell Seekers is an enduring classic which has touched the hearts of millions worldwide. Set in Gloucestershire, London, Cornwall and Ibiza, and shifting between 1939 and 1985, this poignant drama explores themes of memory, fate, trauma and connection.