Much has been written about the men who left to fight in the First World War but what was life really like for those left behind on the Home Front? A bustling market town profoundly touched by the war, St Albans is the perfect place of which to ask this question, thanks in part to the survival of exceptionally rich archives of records from the period.

This book explores the immediate challenges the townspeople faced during the war as well as the longer-term effects on the city. When the war finally ended, could life ever return to 'normal' as some 3,000 soldiers returned home?