What to watch
Women at War: 100 Years of Service
BBC ONE, 9.15AM
A century after women were first allowed to join the British Armed Forces, albeit in non-combat roles, five celebrities relate their experiences or those of their relatives in the Services in this new series. Edward Fox, Kelly Holmes, Pam Ayres and Nicky Campbell feature later in the week, but first up is Eastenders actress June Brown, a volunteer for the Women’s Royal Naval Service (aka the Wrens) in the final year of the Second World War.
As Brown meets veterans and officers from across the decades, visits training camps and examines uniforms of yore, a constant theme surfaces: her repeated astonishment at – and scepticism of – an integrated navy, a reality since the Wrens were disbanded in 1993. “I just don’t know where the femininity has gone,” she says. But, as one recruit makes it clear, the transition hasn’t always been straightforward. Brown is a wry raconteur, underplaying her wartime contribution as a cinema projectionist. Yet even in this small way, she was a pioneer, and this acknowledgement proves key to her eventual acceptance of the military status quo. As a result, this is an engaging documentary. Gabriel Tate