If I am not script writer, what was I doing on this course? It is a good question and one I asked myself several times during the week. Simon was one of two tutors on a TV script writing course. He and I met on a course in the beautiful English county of Devon in 2012. I am a historian, not a script-writer, so the suggestion that a village women’s institute might be a potential seed of an idea for a drama came not from me but from the brilliant mind of Home Fires’ creator and writer, Simon Block.

So you can imagine that it has been a journey of many exciting twists and turns: to create a drama out of the greatest crisis to hit the lives of those living in the middle of the twentieth century.įirst things first. When I set out to write a history of the wartime activities of the Women’s Institute of England and Wales in 2009 I had no inkling that it would lead to a full-blown television drama series. In Jambusters / Home Fires, Summers tells the story of the Women’s Institute in the Second World War, following the lives of a small number of women who kept diaries or accounts of the war years.īelow, author Julie Summers shares the process of her book becoming a much loved period drama. The ITV / PBS Masterpiece television mini-series Home Fires, now in its second season, is based on the book Jambusters ( Home Fires in the US) by Julie Summers. But when the value of the largely social group, The Women’s Institute, is called into question, forward-thinking Frances Barden (Samantha Bond) and snobbish Joyce Cameron (Francesca Annis) clash over the fate of the Institute and the roles its members can play, far from the front. While citizens of the isolated village of Great Paxford each face the prospect of war in their own way, all agree that they must do everything they can to hold their village-and their nation-together. – Steve November, ITVĪt the start of season 1 of Home Fires it is August 1939, and war with Germany is all but certain. With World War II on the horizon, multiple strands of plot interweave to create a period drama full of jeopardy and intrigue, but also great humanity and modernity. The women are real and engaging and have fantastic spirit and attitude. Great writing from Simon has given Julie Summers’ wonderful book a fictional life. The WI, and the shared mission and friendships formed there, helped the women to face personal struggles and the challenges of World War II. Home Fires (2015) is a period drama inspired by the true story of the Women’s Institute, a community organization that brought women together from all over Great Britain, through food production, education, and social issues. Home » Period Drama Articles » History & Costumes » Jambusters: Making of a Period Drama Jambusters: Making of a Period Drama

Jambusters by Julie Summers