The Truth Behind War of Nerves:
War of Nerves is set in June 1941, a month that began with the fall of Crete and ended with the German invasion of the Soviet Union. As with every episode of Foyle's War, all the details are true.
The crime at the heart of the episode, for example, is based on a scandal that unravelled in Liverpool in January 1942 when a certain Frederick Porter shot himself. His company, F.H. Porter Ltd, ship's scalers, had embezzled £308,000 from the government. That would be the equivalent of £12,000,000 today. The money was found, in cash, in the vault of a local bank.
This fraud (described in An Underworld At War by Donald Thomas) began with stolen timber being used to build an air raid shelter for a local naval commander. This is the inspiration for Milner's undercover work.
The first People's Convention was held on 12 January 1941 and was, as described in the script, a coalition of the British left. The story of Ernest Jones's close escape actually happened to a sapper called Jack Curtis. The difficulties of wartime weddings are set out in How We Lived Then by Norman Longmate and descriptions of women welders come from contemporary letters.
Behind the scenes with Production Designer, Martyn John
The final episode, War of Nerves, centres on a shipyard where an unexploded bomb lands.
Says Martyn: "We found the dockyard at Chatham, which has a 1942 destroyer in dock so that was lucky. We also built a good set. Part of it was in the studio so we put up a painted backing of the Chatham dockyard which you could see through the windows. It was going back to old fashioned film making.
The production included a bit of off-screen drama.
"We had to build two bombs, which are discovered by the bomb squad. While we were preparing these one was stolen from the props store. My art director had to drive around London with a fake bomb in his car as we needed another one
Reading List
War of Nerves is set in June 1941, a month that began with the fall of Crete and ended with the German invasion of the Soviet Union. As with every episode of Foyle's War, all the details are true.
The crime at the heart of the episode, for example, is based on a scandal that unravelled in Liverpool in January 1942 when a certain Frederick Porter shot himself. His company, F.H. Porter Ltd, ship's scalers, had embezzled £308,000 from the government. That would be the equivalent of £12,000,000 today. The money was found, in cash, in the vault of a local bank.
This fraud (described in An Underworld At War by Donald Thomas) began with stolen timber being used to build an air raid shelter for a local naval commander. This is the inspiration for Milner's undercover work.The first People's Convention was held on 12 January 1941 and was, as described in the script, a coalition of the British left. The story of Ernest Jones's close escape actually happened to a sapper called Jack Curtis. The difficulties of wartime weddings are set out in How We Lived Then by Norman Longmate and descriptions of women welders come from contemporary letters.
Behind the scenes with Production Designer, Martyn John
The final episode, War of Nerves, centres on a shipyard where an unexploded bomb lands.
Says Martyn: "We found the dockyard at Chatham, which has a 1942 destroyer in dock so that was lucky. We also built a good set. Part of it was in the studio so we put up a painted backing of the Chatham dockyard which you could see through the windows. It was going back to old fashioned film making.
The production included a bit of off-screen drama.
"We had to build two bombs, which are discovered by the bomb squad. While we were preparing these one was stolen from the props store. My art director had to drive around London with a fake bomb in his car as we needed another one
Reading List
- How We Lived Then: A history of everyday life during the Second World War ; by Norman Longmate; ASIN: 0091025206 ; Hutchinson
- An Underworld at War: by Donald Thomas; ISBN:0719563402; John Murray