Barnardo Boy

Overview

An excavation yields evidence of WW1 mortar bombs. Its position reveals it is a ‘trench mortar pit’, key to the Allied taking of “Hill 70”, a strategic position in Northern France in the summer of 1917. The Trench Detectives begin a search for the tight-knit band of brothers who fought there, revealing the name of a Canadian soldier who lead the group into battle. As the Trench Detectives close in on how he came to be there, they uncover the moving, Dickensian story of a “Barnardo Boy”. The soldier was the eldest of three English orphans rescued from the crushing slums of a Northern steel town in Britain and shipped to Canada where the children were sent their separate ways. None were told where the others were but all were bound by a strong desire to reunite.