In 2005, the BBC launched an ambitious public history project called The People’s War. It aimed to collect and preserve the memories of those who lived through the Second World War, inviting the public to share their experiences online. This was long before today’s social media platforms, and the scale of the response was remarkable. By the time the project closed in 2006, over 650,000 contributions had been submitted.
Although the site is now frozen in time, it remains a wonderful resource filled with small, personal vignettes of the war — stories that might otherwise have been lost. It’s something I’ve dipped into myself many times over the years.
My guest for this episode is John Willis, who was the BBC’s Director of Factual when The People’s War project was launched. John has now curated a selection of these submissions in his new book, The People’s War.