Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War

In 1942 Cora Johnston is grieving over the death of her young husband, torpedoed in the Atlantic; Aileen Morris is intercepting Luftwaffe communications during the siege of Malta – and Clara Milburn, whose son was captured after Dunkirk, is waiting, and waiting …

We tend to see the Second World War as a man’s war, featuring Spitfire crews and brave deeds on the Normandy beaches. But in conditions of “Total War” millions of women – in the Services and on the Home Front - demonstrated that they were cleverer, more broad-minded and altogether more complex than anyone had ever guessed.

In Millions Like Us Virginia Nicholson tells the story of the women’s war, through a host of individual women’s experiences. She tells how they loved, suffered, laughed, grieved and dared; how they re-made their world in peacetime. And how they would never be the same again …


Virginia Nicholson's evocative account of the Second World War is told through a multitude of individual women's experiences. As their stories unfold we discover how they loved, suffered, laughed, grieved and dared.

Episode 1:

The conflict begins, and thirty-seven year old Frances Faviell learns to administer first-aid, and Lorna Bradey, serving as a nurse in France, witnesses the horror of Dunkirk first hand.

Episode 2:

A ship is hit by a torpedo, and Mary Cornish's terrifying account of the hours and days that followed is recalled.

Episode 3:

Women enter the workplace in ever increasing numbers.

Episode 4:

Rumours and speculation about a second front gather pace, and Doris Scorer is transferred from the aircraft factory to the woodwork shop, where she starts making gliders.

Episode 5:

As the celebratory atmosphere of VE day fades, many women are left wondering what the future holds.