On the Home Front

(dramatic music) - [Mrs. Hall] Curtains shut.

- In Darrowby, the war is affecting people's day-to-day.

- Lights out at a certain time.

Blackout curtains are pulled.

- There's less food around, there's less sweet treats.

- Things that were easy to get before become hard.

Things that were hard to get before become impossible.

- [Richard] Good boy.

- It's most impressive, though it does explain why there's never any cheese.

- Because we're now in 1941 and the war is raging on, we'll see a little bit more of its impact, especially within the community and people doing their bit.

- [Siegfried] To all our boys, may we see them soon.

- Hear, hear.

- So there's definitely a sense of compromise that has to be made.

- Another very big change is Mrs. Pumphrey's manor, which has become a convalescence house.

- Tricki and I have been asked to vacate Pumphrey Manor.

It's being requisitioned by the army as a convalescent hospital.

Oh, we'll be perfectly happy in the little cottage.

I do worry about Tricki.

I'm afraid he's going to find it terribly pokey.

- Makes me think I could be doing more than just knitting.

- I think it's really important to Mrs. Hall to contribute.

We've told the story of being in the Wrens in World War I, and I think that need in her to contribute is very much there and so she's thinking hard about what can she do.

- I wish to volunteer to be a blackout warden.

- I think it's marvelous.

We must all try to play our part.

- There's an elderly member of the community who's been unwell following an operation and Helen takes it in her stride with a baby on her hip to take over her efforts in the victory garden.

- Ay, you got your work cut out for you down here.

- So she ends up doing the vegetable patch and, you know, that's something that she very much commits to, and I think it kind of helps her find her feet as her again.

- James is currently contributing to the war effort training to be a pilot.

Being slightly older, I think he takes it very seriously because the young men around him are all, you know, they're 18, 19, 20 years old.

So even his role as pilot within his little squadron, he'll be taking men under his wing.

- When you have no choice but to focus on the job in hand, there's a kind of clarity.

Suddenly everything you've learned, all the knowledge, all the skills you've acquired, they just take over.

- You're at training and you're seeing men who are, you know, in your bunkhouse leaving to go off and fight and not returning.

You know, their beds are made and their stuff's gone, and new guys are coming in.

So it would be very, very real, especially even at training.

- The training mission last night came under fire from the Luftwaffe.

Three German planes came out of nowhere.

- Everything feels a little bit held together with string.

- So we see people coming together even more.

- The table isn't quite so full as it was, but they're all right.

(dramatic music continues)