Compelling and moving real-life accounts of the impact on family life of the return of the troops at the end of the Second World War.

Summer 1945. Britain was in jubilant mood. At last, the war was over. Soon the men would be coming home. Then everything would be fine: life would get back to normal.

Or would it? Six long years of war had profoundly changed family life. For years, Dad had been a khaki figure in a photograph on the wall, a crumpled letter from overseas, an occasional visitor on weekend leave. Now he was here to stay, a stranger in a group that had learned to live without him - and was not always prepared to have him back.

Most homecomings were joyful, never-to-be-forgotten moments of humour and hope. Others were hard. And there was no one to deal with the tears and the trauma.

It would take hope and courage for families to live and love together again.