Description: The film recounts the experience of James Hale, a Kennington resident who fought in the 1/24th (County of London) Battalion (The Queen's) during the First World War. There is no moving footage; instead stills from the period are used to illustrate the script, which draws largely on the diaries of James Hale and 24th Battalion. Popular songs from WW1 - ‘Pack up Your Troubles’, ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’, ‘I Want to Go Home’, ‘Hush! Here Comes a Whizz-Bang’ and ‘Forward Joe Soap’s Army’ are also used. James Hale’s grandson narrates the film. He locates Hale’s life and experience with key historical events. One theme is the mechanization of warfare: the battle of Cambrai in 1915, for example, used tanks for the first time and Hale’s division experimented with signalling to airplanes using a morse code shutter. It was the time of the flying ace – Richthofen, Navarre and Bull -but zeppelins posed a bigger threat and in 1915 London was bombed. James Hale was born on 26th December 1879 in Kennington and joined the 24th Battalion of the Territorial Army - located in New Street, Kennington - in 1909. In 1914 Great Britain declared war on Germany in defence of Belgian neutrality and Hale became a regular soldier, undergoing extensive training in the winter of 1914. In March 1915 the Queen’s battalion sailed to France and then marched to Bethune where they had their headquarters. Hale fought at Neuve Chapelle - where gas was used for the first time against French and English troops; Festubert; Auber’s Ridge; Windy Corner; the Somme; Hill 60; the Ypres-Comines Canal; Vimy Ridge and Bourlon Wood, where he was awarded the Military Medal for rescuing a comrade from No-Man’s Land. In November 1918 the war ended and Hale returned home. He was discharged from the TA in 1926 but joined the Home Guard in 1941 during WW2. Hale died in 1952 and the film ends with his grandson attending a memorial service to the Queen’s in Kennington Park in 1984.