Author(s): Paul Atterbury

Photography

To mark the centenary of the start of World War I, the Antiques Roadshow team filmed a series of specials at the Somme, where the public brought in their family's war memorabilia and photographs. These 'antiques' weren't financially valuable, or in some cases even very beautiful, but the stories that came attached to these momentoes were priceless. Antiques Roadshow: World War I in 100 Family Treasures takes 100 of the most fascinating and moving stories and shows how they fit in to the wider history that was occurring around them. From Rifleman Frank Edwards, who led the 'big push' in September 1915 kicking a football in front of the troops (and survived to tell the tale) to the formidable Catherine Murray Roy, one of the first 50 nurses to be sent to the front lines in France. The story behind each object paints an intimate portrait of a long-lost relative, and quotes from the modern-day participants in the roadshow provide a moving link between the families then and now. Fully illustrated, and featuring all the stories from the show, this is a truly unique way of telling the story of those ordinary lives that were, by the onset of war in 1914, thrown into the most extraordinary of circumstances.