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Turn Back Time: The High Street

Leanne Klein

Cate Hall

Turn Back Time: The High Street: Episode 4: World War Two

Factual: Consumer

World War Two

Episode 4

Episode 4: World War Two

The High Street

BBC One - Turn Back Time, The High Street, World War Two

The shopkeepers and their customers are plunged into World War Two.

Shopkeepers live through six key eras of history. The shopkeepers and their customers are plunged into World War Two, and for the first time profit isn't everything.

A group of modern shopkeepers and their families are on the journey of a lifetime - they're taking over empty shops in a neglected market square in Shepton Mallet to see if they can turn back time for the British High Street. They'll live and trade through six key eras of history, and in this episode the shopkeepers and their customers are plunged into World War Two.

For the first time profit isn't everything, as the shopkeepers find themselves dealing with rationing, promoting make do and mend, and trying to persuade an entire town to pull together as it would have done sixty years ago.

The grocer family struggle with wartime rules and regulations, and customers have to decide whether to stick to rations or to buy from the black market. The bakers feed the town from their British restaurant, while the butcher promotes mutton to modern shoppers. The dressmaker and the blacksmith convince the town of the benefits of 1940s style recycling. 

But shortages, an air raid and hungry customers all take their toll; will they keep the town onside in the run up to the VE day celebrations at the end of the week?

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A group of shop-keeping families are taken back in time to the birth of the high street.

A group of shop-keeping families are transported back to the birth of the high street in the 1870s, and propelled through a century of change, right up to the modern era and the 1970s.

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