Steve Humphries – författare

Hope and Glory and the television series it accompanies provide a unique record of the strong links between the West of England and the Empire and Commonwealth in the twentieth century. It features the epic stories of men and women whose lives were shaped by emigration and immigration on an unimaginable scale. We hear the voices of those who were inspired to undertake a life-changing journey across the sea to England, to Australia, to India, Africa and the Far East.What was it like to grow up in India at the height of British Empire? What happened to the thousands of orphans forcibly transported to places like Australia and Canada? How did it feel to struggle for civil rights in 1960s Bristol? What was it like to be an eighteen-year-old National Serviceman fighting a war in the jungles of Malaya? Hope and Glory is a fascinating and often moving snapshot of a bygone era whose legacy lives on today.

In association with the flagship BBC2 series.This is the story of the men and women of a truly remarkable generation. Born into a world still reeling from the earth-shattering events of the Great War, they grew up during the appalling economic depression of the 1930s, witnessed the globe tear itself apart again during the Second World War, and emerged from post-war austerity determined to create a new society for their children.It is the story of people who raised their families during the immense social upheaval of the Fifties and Sixties, as the world in which they had grown up changed inexorably. It is the story of the people who shaped the way we live now. Britain's Greatest Generation tells this multi-faceted story through the eye-witness accounts of those who were there, from Japanese prisoner of war Fergus Anckorn to Dame Vera Lynn, from Bletchley Park veteran Jean Valentine to Dad's Army creator Jimmy Perry, and from fighter pilot Tom Neil to the Queen's cousin Margaret Rhodes. Together their testimony creates a vivid, often deeply moving picture of an extraordinary epoch – and the extraordinary people who lived through it.