We will remember them

She came into the room clutching an old black handbag. The pain of a soldier's death in Normandy was locked up inside. The handbag had belonged to her mother. Julia had never opened it since her death a few years ago. Today, in a digital storytelling workshop, she would find out what was inside. Things she never knew about the soldier, her father, who died in the D Day landings 60 years ago in 1944.

I spent several months last year helping people like Julia tell their personal stories about the second world war. My teams had been commissioned by BBC Peoples War to run a series of storytelling workshops throughout England. They opened my eyes to what they endured and suffered. Not just in the five and a half years of war but in those that followed too. In some cases the pain had been handed on to the next generation, as in Julia's case.

The memories were made into short films, digital stories, and published by the BBC. Try these for a start.
My mother's handbag
Fond and trying times of war years
They shall not grow old

There are many more stories like these in the BBC Telling Lives archive and thousands of text verisons on The Peoples War site. Both are worth a visit on this day of celebration in the UK to mark the end of the war.

I'm still in touch with Julia. She was so thankful for her few days in the digital storytelling workshop that I was invited to her ruby wedding anniversary. Even though it was her party she had baked a cake for me; it had been my birthday a couple of days earlier. It's a privilege to help people like her to tell their stories. Every one is special.