We are excited to announce that the first fourteen War Widows’ Stories interviews are now freely available on our website. Our interviews tell the life stories of war widows and their children. They are intended to raise awareness of war widows’ lives and to dispel the myths and stereotypes that currently define war widows’ identities in the public imagination.

War widows have been shamefully neglected across all aspects of British society, culture, and politics. Their stories remain excluded from school curricula as well as from the cultural institutions whose responsibility it is to tell the stories of war, including the Imperial War Museums. In fact, at present there is only one war widow in the entire exhibitions of the Imperial War Museum London.

The majority of the British public are under the impression that war widows are, and always have been, well looked after by state and the Armed Forces, but this could not be further from the truth. Britain’s 18,000+ war widows are a diverse body of women of all ages, facing challenges that, for most of us, are unimaginable, with support often difficult to access.

You can now listen to, read, and download each of our first fourteen interviews in the Stories section of our website and learn about war widows’ lives before and after the death of their husbands as well as finding out what it is like growing up as the child of a war widow. All our interviews are published under a Creative Commons licence, and you are welcome to redistribute and use them accordingly as long as you credit War Widows’ Stories. They are stories of tragedy, sadness, and outrage, but also of love, community, family, and courage.

War widows’ stories matter. Help us raise awareness and ensure that war widows are no longer war’s forgotten women.