British women showing grace under pressure in 1940

Our gender defines us. Men fight in trenches while women engage in different types of struggles in civilian life. Which is the stronger sex? Is it the military person or the homemaker? Brain or brawn? Adolf Hitler or Eva Braun?

We often hear taunts about the British being “the old enemy” but Ireland never had to go through what they did during two world wars.

Home Fires (12), which aired on U&Drama and is available to buy in various box sets online, documents these struggles. It focuses mainly on the “gentle sex” who fretted about the plight of their menfolk as ‘Jerry’ caused havoc across Europe and made air raids on Britain.

It’s a fascinating series. I was glued to it on Sunday nights. The period is captured brilliantly and there are excellent performances from the cast, who all look ‘of the time.’

A plethora of storylines unfold in each episode. Each of them seamlessly develops at their own pace. We get an abusive husband, a son feared dead in action, a good woman bribed into fraud. There are marital infidelities, sexual confusion, scandal, social ostracisation – it’s all here.

Based on Julie Summers’ book Jambusters which dealt with the inhabitants of a closely-knit Cheshire village, it was first shown on television in 2015. I missed it then. That’s why I found it doubly welcome when it was re-aired.

ITV terminated it mysteriously after two seasons on a cliff-hanging episode involving a plane crashing into a building. The station refused to revive it despite a petition from disgruntled viewers that received over 20,000 signatures.

Simon Block, who helmed it, decided to continue it in book form under the name Keep the Home Fires Burning. If you’re as eager as I am you might wish to purchase that in the absence of ITV relenting to public pressure.

It’s so authentically filmed it made me feel I was back in that time, empathising with the women who had soldiers on pedestals but who also sympathised with deserters and conscientious objectors. (These are other sub-themes).

There will be wars, as the Bible says, and rumours of wars until the end of the world. At present we’re pummelled almost daily with distressing news reports concerning Iran, the Lebanon and the Ukraine. But what about the stories that take place behind closed doors?

Home Fires explores the heart and soul of these. It explores the solidarity and camaraderie of communities. It goes into the dark places of loneliness, deprivation, heartbreak.

This is a high voltage series that’s sentimental but never slushy. It has as big a heart as Call the Midwife without having that series’ occasional lapses into the saccharine. Its characters are flinty and full of integrity.

Moss Hart once said of Julie Andrews, “She has that British strength that makes you wonder why they lost India.” We see the same fortitude here in the women who keep the “home fires” burning.