Many years ago, the TV adaptation starring Cheryl Campbell did so much to convey the anguish endured by women who survived the First World War and lost almost every young male significant in their lives. In Vera Brittain's own case, this included her brother, most of their friends, and her beloved fiancee.

Her own experiences as a nurse in the battle fields brought her face to face with front-line suffering, but what I remember so vividly about her harrowing memoir is her description of her struggles, so common to dutiful daughters of the time, to balance the demands of elderly parents with her professional obligations. Her comment remains all to true, even in these more enlightened times:

"What exhausts women in wartime is not the strenuous and unfamiliar tasks that fall upon them, nor even the hourly dread of death for husbands or lovers or brothers or sons: it is the incessant conflict between personal and national claims which wears out their energy and breaks their spirit."

Read about Vera Brittain and follow related links on the Peace Pledge Union website:
http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/people/pst_vera.html
The picture shows the grave of Vera's fiancee, Roland Leighton, who died at a Casualty Clearing Station in France on December 23rd, 1915. VB received the news of his death on her way to Brighton, where she intended to meet him from the train for a brief period of Christmas leave.