Based on the powerful true story.

Vera Brittain is a bright young woman growing up in a middle class Derbyshire family in 1914. Her world seems to be a constant fight with her father to be allowed to go to University like her brother. Suddenly the Great War starts and throws the whole of society into turmoil. Vera goes to University but all her menfolk, brothers and friends join up to fight the Boche. By 1916 they are all dead including her dear brother and fianc. Vera gives up University and signs up as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) aka a nurse working just behind the front lines in a Field Hospital in France and Belgium. The suffering of the men - both British and German (Vera gets to be one of the few nurses who look after German casualties) is well represented. Vera Brittain was the mother of the British politician Shirley Williams. We owe her a lot for showing us the pain and heartache of that now almost vanished generation. The unforgettable story of Vera Brittain, author and feminist. The year is 1913 when the strong-willed Vera finds love and happiness at Oxford University; but these pleasures end abruptly when war breaks out and she is called to the frontlines as a nurse.