Gen Y on Lost Gen
The impact of Channel 4's The Somme on today's young generation
Scene from The Somme
Enlarge
image
Generation Y (sometimes called Generation Why?) is a demographic term used to describe 'the youth of today' – those people born in Western societies in the 1980s and 1990s. Their experiences and lifestyles are inevitably so different from the Lost Generation of the First World War that we thought it would be interesting to see how a group of sixth-form students would react to the harrowing and touching drama documentary that recounts one of the worst disasters in British military history.
Eleven days before the eleventh day of the eleventh month, an audience of 17-year-olds watched The Somme at Channel 4's headquarters in central London. Told through the letters, diaries and official reports written at the time, the film uses the thoughts and feelings of the men who lived – and died – there, to capture the eyewitness experience of the Battle of the Somme.
They each completed one questionnaire on their feelings and views before the screening and then another afterwards to help gauge what impact the film had had on them. They were also asked questions on their views in an informal post-film discussion.
Thanks to all the audience members who came from:
Harrow School, Middlesex
Barking Abbey School, Essex
Woodhouse College, Finchley, London
St. James Independent School for Senior Girls, Olympia, London
Bexley Grammar School, Welling, Kent
Woodford County High School, Essex
The Tiffin Girls' School, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey