[Music] for most people the First World War is associated with mert and the trenches and Flanders it's about the image that we have on Black Adder or from reading the war poets but there is a very different narrative of this conflict how it influenced ordinary people's lives how it was fought in the fields factories and the kitchens of people across the country for the last four years we've been exploring ways in which ordinary people's lives him was too sure in the surrounding counties have been shaped by this conflict [Music] by 1919 almost 200,000 war widows and more than a third of a million children were receiving pensions these numbers do not include dependents of all the men who came back chronically injured and died later nor all the women who didn't qualify for support because of the tight regulations almost certainly tens of thousands of families received nothing from the start of the conflict the British government was totally unprepared for the economic and social consequences of prolonged modern mass warfare on the families who had lost their major breadwinner when war was declared on August the 4th 1914 huge numbers of men flocked to the recruiting offices thousands more than were expected there was sometimes queues a mile in length and by the end of September 1914 750,000 men had volunteered before the war the army was almost exclusively single men in most regiments only six percent were officially married but in the war fever at the outbreak of this war many thousands of married men volunteered they had enlisted for the duration only most expected the war to be over fairly quickly and that their families would be provided for until they returned home on the 10th of August 1914 only six days after the outbreak of war Prime Minister Asquith bowed to pressure and announced its separation allowances and when necessary war widows pensions would be paid to the families of all volunteers however no machinery existed to pay out these allowances and great hardship resulted voluntary organisations stepped in particularly the soldiers and sailors families association who began to administer and validate claims for both separation allowances and pensions on behalf of the War Office under the system the Saffir instigated the amounts given to top-up separation allowances and pensions were unregulated and could differ from one area of the country to another and were often dependent on the personal judgement of volunteers but in Belgium the death toll was already rising and the inadequacies of the pension were exposed the war widows pension the Tusk with introduced paid just five shillings a week to the war widow of a private soldier this was a totally inadequate amount the amounts the SS FA gave vary between seven shillings 35 pence and nine shillings 45 pence per week according to the age and the station in life of the beneficiaries but the charities had other agendas beyond economic survival Helen Anstey one of the SSF A's volunteers explained that visiting the Y's presented an excellent opportunity for educating them in true patriotism and loyalty to their country payments were made conditional on the widows good behavior and reputation and always with the idea of teaching them self-help rather than reliance but the moralistic tone of the SSF phase fifty thousand mostly middle class volunteers drew strong criticism women suffrage leader Sylvia Pankhurst noted from all over the country not least from my own district came complaints that officials of the soldiers and sailors families association were telling the women whose men were at the war to move into one room and to sell pianos gramophones even furniture before replying anywhere for aid the notion that the women were entitled to separation allowance as a right not as a charitable act of grace seemed difficult for the association's officials to assimilate in Newcastle soldiers wives were given food tickets instead of the money due to them and were permitted to obtain household commodities only from a prescribed list which comprised the cheap inferior qualities of food as these wives and widows struggled the fear of the effects of husbandless women with money on moral life remained a common theme particularly among the middle class and especially men typically canon II a Burroughs wrote that soldiers wives were drinking excessively thanks to needlessly liberal separation allowances of eighteen shillings a week and no husband were heaven to women who once industrious and poor were now wealthy and idle reactionary attitudes like these were commonplace and were to be reiterated many times they led to women being placed under police surveillance in areas where many servicemen's wives were situated women's police patrols were empowered to check streets parks and pubs in areas where it was feared that women might seduce young soldiers or succumb to men's advances but the stark realities of widowhood and inadequate pensions were all too clear for many families as one woman recalled I lost my father in the Royal Marines after he had done 21 years he came out 1914 he was called up for war service and died in 1915 leaving my late mother with six children and none of them old enough to carry on the business my father had saved up for I was only 12 and five brothers under me my mother used to work in the Royal Marine Barracks doing men's washing as the war pension was very low at the time the introduction of conscription in January 1916 and the horrendous Somme offensive which left 420 thousand British soldiers dead made the replacement of the voluntary delivery of pensions with a state system inevitable in December 1916 the Ministry of pensions was established the ministry said pensions to widows children and dependents will not be claimed as a right but shall be given as a reward of service and no pension shall be granted or continued to a widow who is unworthy a war Widow had to behave responsibly and be respectable if not her pension could be removed and if she was not looking after her children properly they too could be removed from her care and the Treasury justified this by the fact of the depen might be for life while a separation allowance was of limited duration they also insisted that widows expenses were less as Sir Charles Harris the permanent undersecretary at the War Office explained the man who goes to fight is entitled to expect that his home or cottage or whatever it is shall be kept together as long as he is alive when the man is dead it is in all ranks of society customary for the widow to move to a smaller house by 1918 the Ministry of pensions had become a huge government department they seemed to have been under constant pressure to save the government money as the cost of the war and the enormous number of casualties and deaths were draining the country's resources the approach of the service Charities system that a war Widow had to be respectable deserving of help and of good behavior continued in the ministry of pensions becoming enshrined in law and systematically enforced this committee decided that more than 8,000 women should forfeit their pension and Despard them from claiming any alternative the Ministry ruled a pension to a widow is the replacement of support which her husband would have given and that if she by her actions would have forfeited her claim on her husband the community should not be called on to support her peace did not bring relief for widows jobs were scarce as unemployment increased and the country faced bankruptcy any woman who married a man who was already war disabled or diseased was not granted a war widows pension if he later died from his injuries even if his death was due to his war service also any marriage that took place after the war ended or any child born after the war was also not eligible for war pension support this letter written by a war Widow many years later described the lifetime of menial low-paid work he died in 1934 I was left with five children the youngest one year I was informed as we were married after his discharge I was not eligible for a pension I took in knitting for in six finishing a jumper then I got a job so in three pound a week I was taxed on that then we had army camps nearby I took in washing for the troops it was all work there was also a seven year rule in place if a soldier lived seven years or more after his war injury occurred his death was judged as not being attributable to his service and therefore once again the war Widow would not be granted a pension this letter written by a severely ill ik soldier in 1919 shows how heartless this rule could be I'm in a dilemma it is now three years since I contracted this disease and unless I die within four years my wife and children will be deprived of their pension I know that by taking the greatest care of my life I might live a few years longer but what a horrible feeling it is to me to think that by prolonged in my life by care beyond that time limit by doing so I leave my wife and children destitute the seven years rule was eventually rescinded but even so during the interwar years it became increasingly difficult to prove entitlement to a war widows pension it was up to the widow to prove that their husband had died as a result of his war injuries and even if he had been receiving a hundred percent disability pension their claims were frequently rejected of course life went on for war widows and their families some remarried but for many hardship would shape the rest of their lives which poor pensions fail to relieve when I first lost my husband I had eighteen shillings and sixpences old money for myself and so children thank God after the first year I have asked Adele's and although I'm no knowing they don't do so badly I live alone but never feel lonely you [Music] [Music]