Eyewitness provides a rare and fascinating opportunity to hear the events of the century described by those who saw them happen. A wealth of BBC archive recordings, some never previously broadcast, is interwoven with an illuminating commentary by the historian Joanna Bourke. Published in 10 volumes, Eyewitness examines the role and the life of the British people in each decade of the century.The Edwardian era ended in 1910 with the death of Edward VII, and George V was to preside over a violent and tempestuous age. Industrial action and suffragette violence increased, and divisions in Ireland hardened, leading to the Easter Rising and its bitter consequences. But the Great War dominated the decade and the century, as the blood of over 700,000 men was spilt on the battlefields.
Voices of servicemen, factory workers, and domestic servants alternate with those of the great and the good such as Lord Beveridge, David Lloyd George, and Nancy Astor, to describe daily life in peace and war. Momentous events such as Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole, Shackleton's crossing of the Antarctic, and the sinking of the Titanic are vividly described.
Thought-provoking and moving, these are the voices of the past, speaking to the present.