Home Fires: Setting the Scene with Author Julie Summers
2016-02-05
– by Julie Summers
The drama series, Home Fires, written and created by Simon Block, was inspired by my non-fiction book Jambusters (Home Fires in the USA) which looked at the activity of the Women’s Institutes on the British Home Front in the Second World War. Born in Canada in 1897, the Women’s Institute movement gave a voice to country women living in often isolated communities. By the middle of the twentieth century it had matured in both Britain and Canada into an important women’s organisation which had the power and authority to lobby government and strive for better conditions for country women, while maintaining a strictly non-sectarian, non-political stance.
The idea of a group of independently-minded women working within a rural village in Britain appealed to the creative mind of the script writer and executive producers of the show. Their belief in the project has given birth to a powerful women-led drama that draws on history for its backdrop, but with a light touch, and on the imagination of Simon Block for the characters and the development of the drama.
This is the backdrop to the first series of Home Fires. The historical events you see were very much part of life in the early months of the war. Although Simon Block’s characters are entirely fictitious, they share many characteristics with the real women of 1940s Britain and as such mirror rural life as it was then.
Photo: BarkerEvans.comWriter, Broadcaster and Historian Julie Summers is the author of Jambusters, the inspiration for the hit ITV series, Home Fires, premiering on VisionTV Wednesdays at 9pm ET/6pm PT through March 9, 2016.
Read more from Julie here and visit her official website here. Home Fires, the book, is available for purchase here. Watch for more fascinating Home Fires backgrounders from Julie each Tuesday through March 8.
Need to catch up on episodes of Home Fires online? Each episode will be available to watch here for 30 days from the day after its premiere broadcast.
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