Patrick Stewart and Hugh Dennis both focus on the war experiences of close male relatives - father and grandfather respectively. Both absorbing episodes, but I feel these episodes are better suited to the History Channel.
One of my main areas of research is the First World War. However, my focus is their family lives before the war and the impact their service had on their families and communities. In one small town I'm studying, 17 men lost their lives on the same day in the same action. One woman in this town lost her husband and son on the same day - killed as the result of a booby-trapped dug-out.
So I am interested in the subject, but felt there was something lacking. Part of the joy of WDYTYA is challenging a person's perception of who they are. I loved the Alistair McGowan episode a few years back discovering he had Anglo-Indian and Irish blood, not Scottish as he thought. Hurdler Colin Jackson had the most wonderful heritage, as I recall.
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