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Award-winning biographer Mark Bostridge tells the story of Vera Brittain’s First World War testimony, Testament of Youth. Bostridge, author of Vera Brittain and the First World War, throws new light on the author behind the book and tells of the book’s rise to become one of the most loved memoirs of the First World War period. A major new film of Testament of Youth has just been released in cinemas and stars Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington and Roland Leighton. The film’s producer, Rosie Alison, will join Bostridge and clips from the film will be shown.

Brittain abandoned her studies in Oxford to become a voluntary aid detachment nurse, serving in London, Malta and France. Her fiancé and brother were killed in action, sparking a lifelong commitment to pacifism.

Bostridge is also author of Vera Brittain: A Life, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Prize, and of Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend, winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for historical biography. He is Brittain’s literary executor.

Sponsored by HSBC.