Vera Mary Brittain was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth recounted her experiences during the First World War and the beginning of her journey towards pacifism.
Roland Aubrey Leighton was a British poet and soldier, made posthumously famous by his fiancée Vera Brittain's memoir, Testament of Youth.
Winifred Holtby was an English novelist and journalist, now best known for her novel South Riding, which was posthumously published in 1936.
Sir George Edward Gordon Catlin was an English political scientist and philosopher. A strong proponent of Anglo-American co-operation, he worked for many years as a professor at Cornell University and other universities and colleges in the United States and Canada. He preached the use of a natural science model for political science. McMaster University Libraries holds his correspondence archive and the body of some of his works. He had two children, one of whom was the politician and academic Shirley Williams.
Clare Marie Veronica Leighton, sometimes Clara Ellaline Hope Leighton or Clare Veronica Hope Leighton, was an English/American artist, writer and illustrator, best known for her wood engravings.
Mark Bostridge is a British writer and critic, known for his historical biographies.
South Riding is a novel by Winifred Holtby, published posthumously in 1936.
Margaret Moore Kennedy was an English novelist and playwright. Her most successful work, as a novel and as a play, was The Constant Nymph. She was a productive writer and several of her works were filmed. Three of her novels were reprinted in 2011.
A Woman in Love and War: Vera Brittain was a television documentary on the life of Vera Brittain and her experiences in the First World War. It was first broadcast on Remembrance Sunday 2008 on BBC One. It was presented by Jo Brand. The programme included interviews with Brittain's daughter Shirley Williams, Brittain's biographer Mark Bostridge, and Roland Leighton's nephew David Leighton.
Alicia Amanda Vikander is a Swedish actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award,a Screen Actors Guild Award and Critics' Choice Movie Award with nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and three British Academy Film Awards.
Sylvia Thompson, Mrs Luling was an English novelist, writer and public speaker.
Testament of Youth is a 2014 British drama film based on the First World War memoir of the same name written by Vera Brittain. The film stars Alicia Vikander as Vera Brittain, an independent young woman who abandoned her studies at Somerville College, Oxford, to become a war nurse. The film was directed by James Kent and written by Juliette Towhidi.
Victor Richardson was a British Army officer who served during the Great War, best remembered for being immortalised in his friend Vera Brittain's First World War best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth.
Hilda Stewart Reid was an English novelist and historian. Her four novels, published between 1928 and 1939, are Phillida, Two Soldiers and a Lady, Emily, and Ashley Hamel.
Edward Harold Brittain, MC was a British Army officer who was killed in the First World War; he was immortalised by his sister Vera Brittain in Testament of Youth.
Agnes Body was a British headmistress. She was the founding head of Lincoln Christ's Hospital Girls' High School and Queen Margaret's School, then in Scarborough.
Testament of Youth is a 1979 BBC television drama based on the First World War memoir of the same name written by Vera Brittain. It was transmitted on BBC2.
Robert Leighton was a Scottish journalist, editor, and author of boys' fiction. He was an editor of juvenile magazines, and through his work at Young Folks he met his future wife Marie Connor, a prolific author in her own right. Leighton became an expert on dogs and their care and produced many works on this topic.
Marie Connor Leighton was a prolific author of serial fiction and melodramatic novels. She married fellow writer Robert Leighton and her most famous work Convict 99 was written jointly with him. However her writing income was far in excess of his.
James Kent is a British television and film director. He directed the feature films Testament of Youth and The Aftermath and the TV dramas The White Queen and The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister. He has also directed many documentaries, notably Chopin Saved My Life, 9/11: Phone Calls from the Towers and Holocaust: A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz. He was nominated for the Breakthrough British Filmmaker award at the 2014 London Film Critics Circle Awards. Productions he has directed have been nominated for Golden Globe and Grierson awards and have won BAFTA and International Emmy awards.
