Art for Heroes - check your TV planner

The BBC Two Culture Show will air a programme Art for Heroes this Friday at 7pm.

The hour-long programme looks at the role of art therapy in the rehabilitation of ex-Servicemen suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Presenter Tim Samuels meets veterans of recent British conflicts in the Falklands, the Persian Gulf and Northern Ireland, who reveal their personal battle with PTSD as a result of their military career.  They are now using an unlikely weapon to help fight the psychological wounds of war - art.

Visiting art therapy sessions, Samuels discovers how drawing, sculpting and painting are helping the veterans manage the symptoms of PTSD. Dr Lukas Konopka, a professor of neurology in Chicago, has investigated the effects of art therapy on the brain in the treatment of PTSD. The results provide strong evidence of art's potential to heal

Share your stories for remembrance

See Hear, the BBC’s programme for the Deaf and Hard of hearing and planning to broadcast a special Remembrance Day episode on 9 November and are keen to find personnel or incident-related stories relating to deafness in conflict or military service.

At the moment their remit is quite wide, so they can identify potential stories. So, you don’t need to have served in the Armed Forces, if you were a civilian in a back-up role such as Fire Watching, Munitions Production, Land Army, Nursing, driving or any of the other myriad roles that need filling during times of conflict, then consider sharing your story.

In fact anything to do with war or conflict, in either the Second World War or more recently in Northern Ireland, the Falklands Conflict, Iraq, Kuwait, the Balkans . . . would be of interest to See Hear, if it involves deafness or hearing loss. Ideally they are looking either for people who have suffered serious hearing loss due to military action or Service or people who were born deaf but have been able to serve in some way during one of the nation’s conflicts. Further details about the potential stories See Hear are looking for, can be found here.

To be considered for the programme, send a brief synopsis of your story via email to John Lakey BBC researcher or call 0121 567660. Then he may contact you to look into it in more detail. Please remember to include: your contact details, email, phone and address.

'Our War' - a personal experience

Bjorn Rose, former Army Lieutenant, has written about army life in Afghanistan for the BBC TV blog [Copyright Simon Panter/BBC]

Tomorrow night, the first episode of Our War airs on BBC Three, the three-part series marking a decade of the War in Afghanistan. 

The first episode - Ambushed - focuses on 1 Battalion Royal Anglian's tour of Helmand Province in 2007. The whole tour was filmed on a helmet camera by the platoon's sergeant (the MOD gave the BBC unprecedented access to thousands of hours of footage shot on helmet cameras and personal video cameras).  During the tour, the platoon suffered a casualty with the loss of 19 year old Private Chris Gray. 

Bjorn Rose, a former Army Lieutenant, was the officer commanding 3 (Corunna) Platoon (one of the nine platoons in the Battalion) and is featured in the Ambushed episode. He talks about his involvement in the series and impact of Private Gray's death in a moving blog post, which can be read on the BBC TV blog post  here.

'Our War' - marking a decade in Afghanistan

New BBC Three series will look at a decade in Afghanistan

Marking a decade of the War in Afghanistan, BBC Three is airing a new three-part series Our War next week.

The MOD gave the BBC unprecedented access to thousands of hours of footage shot on helmet cameras and personal video cameras.  The series will give a unique insight into the War, told through films shot by the soldiers themselves.

With the raw honesty of first person stories of life on the front line, the series offers a gripping and poignant insight into every aspect of the young soldiers' experiences -  the average age of the soldiers is 21 - from fear to boredom, grief to bravery, the camaraderie of the platoon and the return home.

The first episode - Ambushed - will air on June 7 at 9pm. This episode focuses on 1 Battalion Royal Anglian's tour of Helmand Province in 2007.

The second episode - The Invisible Enemy - will air on June 14 at 9pm.  This episode follows the plight of the first troops sent to Helmand Province in 2006 and shows how, three years later, Improvised Explosive Devices had changed the War.

The final episode - Caught in the Crossfire  - will air on June 21 at 9pm.  This episode looks at the transition from bloody conflict to the fight for 'hearts and minds' as civilians and the military are caught in the crossfire.