A fascinating, harrowing and deeply moving account of life in the trenches of the Great War.

The Trench recreates in extraordinary detail the experience of day-to-day life for soldiers in the First World War. Volunteers have been recruited from the streets of Hull,exactly as the Hull Pals (the nickname of the 10th battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment)were recruited in 1914. After being trained just as the original recruits were trained and taken to a carefully reconstructed trench in northern France, they are subjected to as many of the privations suffered by their great-grandfathers as can realistically be recreated. It is an extraordinary challenge, physically, mentally and historically.

Based on hours of original research and interviews with surviving veterans of the Great War, as well as the regimental diary which describes every hour of every day in painstaking detail, The Trench aims to give an honest and accurate picture of what it actually felt like to be a soldier on the front line in 1916. What was it like to see the trenches for the first time? What did you do to pass the time once you got there? How did you deal with trench routine? And the deaths of your friends? How did you treat injuries? And trench foot? And lice? What did you eat? How did you sleep? How did you stay alive?

This first-hand testimony is extraordinarily vivid. Fascinating, awe-inspiring and almost unbearably moving, The Trench brings us face to face with the unimaginable daily tragedies of the First World War and shines very humane new light on an area of history we still struggle to comprehend.


Richard Van Emden
Hardcfover with d/w 320 pages

RICHARD VAN EMDEN is the principal researcher on the television series and a respected authority on the First World War. He is the author of a number of books about it, including Veterans and Prisoners of the Kaiser.