Just going to enthusiastically ramble about this series again, since I’ve been revisiting it a lot recently (I have it playing in the background while I work on my WW1 novel). Here is my previous post on it. This post will contain spoilers. (All images are taken from the online gallaries for The Passing Bells‘ BBC One page which you can find here; I couldn’t find any good images for Episode 5). The series is available to purchase on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.

Episode 1 – 1914

We meet Tommy and Michael, both 17, each simply living their lives. Michael is fixated on losing his virginity, and when war begins brewing he is keen to join up, telling his sweetheart Katie, who doesn’t want to make love yet, that he could buy ‘a ring’ with his soldier pay.

Tommy is also excited at the prospect of war, telling his dad he will ‘go and fight’ and that he’s ‘not scared’. They both join up against their mothers’ wishes. The night before he leaves, Michael and Katie make love.

Tommy makes ‘friends’ quickly, befriending Cyril in the enlistment line and Anthony, Ben, and Kev on their first day of training. Once they have been put through their paces, Tommy, Michael and their regiments are deployed ‘to France’.

On arrival in the trenches, they are instructed in the realities of ‘war’, with Michael being told he must keep his gun in good condition because if it ‘doesn’t fire when you need it to, then you or the man next to you is dead’, and Tommy being unimpressed that the British do not have ‘real bombs’ (instead they use tins of Ticklers jam filled with explosives).

The episode ends with the initial bit of fighting, each side firing at each other from their trenches, and Tommy’s shock as one of his ‘comrades’ is killed.

Episode 2 – 1915

Tommy is preparing to attack the Germans with gas (the blurb for this episode describes gas as a ‘new weapon’, so potentially it’s happening during the first British use of gas, the battle of Loos), but it blows ‘back at’ them instead. Michael is on the Eastern front with some new recruits when they are attacked by Russians and Michael has to attack one in order to save his friend Freddie’s life.

Tommy gets up close to some Germans during ‘a ceasefire’ and Michael schools a fellow soldier on how to write home to his mother and father, ‘so they don’t worry’. Michael hears that he is to get ‘leave’ and Tommy awakens after being wounded.

Initially joyous, Michael’s leave is overshadowed by the struggles at home and by just how terrible what he has left behind is, but it inspires him to seize the day and marry Katie. Meanwhile Tommy makes the acquaintance of and shortly begins a ‘burgeoning romance’ with the ‘radiography assistant’, Joanna, who tended him, who tells him that she is Polish and that the Poles have hopes for their country in this ‘war we’ve been waiting for, the one that’ll give us back our homeland’ after it was ‘stolen from us’. (I didn’t know this about Poland, so I genuinely learned something).

Tommy and Michael return to the trenches and are immediately thrown back into the conflict, but both with new reasons to keep going.

Episode 3 – 1916

‘There’s something going on’ announces Ben to the others. Michael’s friends can tell something is up too, but both Tommy and Michael are occupied with their girls. Cyril orchestrates a reunion with Joanna much to Tommy’s delight – I genuinely think this is one of my favourite reunions I’ve ever seen on tv or film – but their meeting is sombre because Joanna’s ‘brother has been killed’.

What is happening is that both armies are preparing for the Somme. Michael’s regiment, ‘dig deep’ in preparation for the British ‘bombardment’. Tommy and his friend’s meet some new, ‘younger’ recruits, one of them, Derek, is only 16 and Tommy quickly makes the decision that he must protect him.

From Michael’s trench, they can hear singing, Tommy and co. are having a sing of ‘Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire’, with their particular verse going like this:

If you want to find the Sergeant,
I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is.
If you want to find the Sergeant, I know where he is,
He’s lying on the canteen floor.
I’ve seen him, I’ve seen him, lying on the canteen floor,
I’ve seen him, I’ve seen him, lying on the canteen floor.

The next day there are are prayers before the bombardment begins. The dugout that Michael and Freddie are in is hit and they are left trapped. Meanwhile, Tommy reckons that ‘This is it, it’s over’ because ‘no one’ could ‘survive’ such a bombardment.

Michael and Freddie are rescued as Tommy warns Derek to keep to a ‘shell hole’ when they ‘go over the top’ the next day. The next morning, the British are confident that they will ‘reach the German trenches’ with ease, but instead they are met with an onslaught of gunfire (I remember this as my introduction to the reality of the Somme, which I then went on to write an essay about for my History coursework). Cyril, Anthony, Ben, and Kev are fatally hit. Tommy advances ‘forward’ while Michael is stationed at his gun, his friends also falling around him.

Later, when silence falls and the guns cease, Tommy and Michael leave their trenches to take in the carnage and as the episode ends we see the situation from above. From up high it looks like they are standing amid the ruins of a city bombed to pieces, but the wreckage is actually masses of bodies.

Episode 4 – 1917

We begin with pathetic fallacy: heavy rain. While Tommy is still coming to terms with the loss of his mates, Michael tries to convince his new friend Erich (I like to think that this Erich is actually Erich Maria Remarque who will go on to write All Quiet on the Western Front) that the war is not futile, moments before their trench is raided.

Tommy is also feeling despair, ‘What if it never ends?’ and again, he is missing Joanna. His sergeant gives him permission to join a ‘prisoner detail’ as ‘the camp’s half a mile from where she’ll be’.

Michael is one of the prisoners, and he is trying to convince Freddie that they should make a break for it. Tommy reunites with Joanna, where he is told, ‘shocked’ yet ‘happy’ that she is pregnant. He tells her that he wants to ‘get married’ and that she should go and ‘stay’ with his family.

Aided by Freddie, who as a consequence is shot dead, Michael runs for it, chased by Tommy. Although he could, Tommy cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. They both return to their regiments.

Derek, frightened beyond endurance (possibly suffering from shellshock) attempts to flee across No Man’s Land and Tommy chases him, they are spotted by Erich, but Michael convinces him to ‘leave them’.

Tommy convinces a terrified and despairing Derek (‘I’m so scared all the time’) – whenever I feel particularly anxious, this line pops into my head and Tommy’s reply, ‘I know you are, and so am I, right, so don’t leave me to be scared on my own’, is always reassuring – to stay put because fleeing is not the route to take, and that they ‘have to keep trying’, Derek for the sake of his parents and Tommy for Joanna and his unborn child.

At home, Michael’s mother Susan is reflecting on everything the war has brought. His father William tries to reassure her that feeling ‘guilty’ over Michael’s safety while her friends’ sons are ‘dead’ is ‘only natural’.

‘Hmm, maybe that’s the problem. We’ve created a world where something like that is normal.’ Joanna arrives at Tommy’s family home as both Tommy and Michael keep watch in the trenches.

Episode 5 – 1918

As Tommy sits in a shell hole, Joanna gives birth. Michael clings to reminders of home. Tommy gets a letter telling him that ‘It’s a boy’, named Thomas. Michael and Erich are retreating and Erich suggests that they ‘just keep going back, all the way home’.

This angers Michael, ‘I haven’t spent four years of my life watching people that I love die all around me just to drop my rifle and go home!’

Joanna hears that ‘her dad’s been killed.’ Tommy asks for ‘leave’ but gets none. Derek is ‘not right’ (still suffering shellshock) and he asks Tommy: ‘Do you think I’m a coward?’ and Tommy reassures him that ‘being scared’ ‘just means you’re human’.

There are rumours of the ‘armistice’ and Erich is concerned about the current state of Germany, but Michael is positive about going ‘home’. ‘Kaiser Bill’ abdicates and Derek is positive about this, but Tommy is not optimistic.

11th November. It’s just another day. Tommy volunteers to go and fix some ‘wire’ out in No Man’s Land, where he comes face to face with Michael. They fatally injure each other. It is declared that ‘The war is over!’ while Tommy and Michael lie dying.

After the appearance of poppies, the dead, British and German, all rise and walk out across a poppy-filled landscape, arms around one another, to fade and be replaced by the familiar white crosses. I read someone’s blog where they said they found this moving because to them it was a representation, ‘a powerful vision’ ,of their Christian ‘faith’. I found that concept quite moving, as a hopeful skeptic when it comes to faith.

The series has been described as full of the same-old stuff, and too simplistic – one article (Ellen E. Jones in the Independent) called it not ‘a realistic depiction of the horrors of war’ and another (Adam Sweeting in theartsdesk.com) ‘trite, cliched TV drama’.

In my opinion, however, this series is beautifully filmed and I particularly love the music (to be quite honest, I think it’s my favourite soundtrack to anything ever) because it reflects the mood of the story so well. (I’ve watched it enough times to be convinced that the music differs slightly for each episode).

In spite of the arguable ‘cliches’ and romanticism (see Jones, Independent) I cannot deny that this series has had a significant impact on me personally. This November it will be a decade since it first aired. I was 15 when I saw it and was beginning to study the First World War in school. I always remeber it as the partial inspiration for my novel that I am still trying to write ten years later. The two young actors who played Tommy (Patrick Gibson) and Michael (Jack Lowden) are favourite actors still, I’ve followed their careers ever since.

Tommy particularly, as the British soldier and therefore the one I can most relate to, has stuck with me. To me, he is the image of the First World War soldier, whenever I think about the war (something that happens a lot) I picture him in my head. Sometimes I forget he’s fictional. I was watching a First-World-War-themed episode of Antiques Roadshow the other day, and one man was displaying his extensive collection of the memorial plaques that would be given to dead soldiers’ families, and I thought, ‘Oh, Tommy’s family will have got one.’ Reading The Great War Handbook as part of my research for my novel, when it came to the chapter ‘Armistice Day Fatalities’, I half expected to see Tommy’s name listed.

In an interview, writer Tony Jordan said of the programme: ‘The antagonist, the only bad guy if you like, in the whole thing is the war itself.’ And I think that makes quite a powerful statement about war in general. 

Jordan also said about his intentions for the programme: ‘I realised that if I stopped thinking of [the characters] as soldiers but just thought of them as boys then it would all make sense. […] It’s not about armies, or nations, causes of war, rights and wrongs of war, goodies or baddies. It’s just about boys.’

Maybe that’s why I love it so much. Even though it is about war – though it does undeniably ommit the violent reality of war, there is perhaps one instance where blood can be seen – it (likely due to the music) brings me a sense of peace and serenity whenever I watch it. The music that plays whenever something non-aggressive happens is so tender and, when the moment’s right, uplifting. It makes me feel in tune with the world. Maybe that just makes me weird, I don’t know. But I will champion this series forever more. I wish more people knew what I was talking about whenever I mention it.