WHO’D have thought that a story about a group of Cheshire women during WW2 would have been such a big hit?

Yet, ITV has commissioned a second series of Home Fires because the Sunday night drama is attracting an average 6.2 million viewers.

It’s not so surprising when you realise it’s based on the book Jambusters, by the excellent Julie Summers. This first-class writer and researcher uncovered remarkable experiences of this difficult time.

The writing and scenarios in Home Fires is engagingly down-to-earth, showcasing the problems women faced when their menfolk went off to war. It stars some of the best of British acting talent including Samantha Bond and Francesca Annis. |

The series is absorbing and inspiring, involving viewers in the ordinary lives of the women left to cope with life and death in wartime.

It succeeds on all levels: as a gentle history lesson, as a way of appreciating the quiet sacrifice of so many and as a tribute to the stoic spirit of the unremarkable thousands then.