- Mother of politician Shirley Williams.
- Became engaged to Ronald Leighton in August of 1915 but he was killed during the First World War on December 23 of that year.
- Had one son, John Brittain-Catlin (1927-1987).
- Author and broadcaster
- She was a practical pacifist in the sense that she helped the war effort by working as a fire warden and by travelling around the country raising funds for the Peace Pledge Union's food relief campaign.
- In February 2009, it was reported that BBC Films was to adapt Brittain's memoir Testament of Youth into a feature film. Irish actress Saoirse Ronan was cast to play Brittain at first. However, in December 2013, it was announced that Swedish actress Alicia Vikander would be playing Brittain in the film, which was released at the end of 2014 as part of the First World War commemorations. The film also starred Kit Harington, Colin Morgan, Taron Egerton, Alexandra Roach, Dominic West, Emily Watson, Joanna Scanlan, Hayley Atwell, Jonathan Bailey and Anna Chancellor. David Heyman, producer of the Harry Potter films, and Rosie Alison were the producers.
- From the 1930s onwards, Brittain was a regular contributor to the pacifist magazine Peace News. She eventually became a member of the magazine's editorial board and during the 1950s and 1960s was "writing articles against apartheid and colonialism and in favour of nuclear disarmament".
- On 9 November 2018, a Wall Street Journal opinion commentary by Aaron Schnoor honoured the poetry of the First World War, including Brittain's poem "Perhaps".
- In November 1966, she suffered a fall in a badly lit London street en route to a speaking engagement at St Martin-in-the-Fields. She attended the engagement, but afterwards found she had fractured her left arm and broken the little finger of her right hand. These injuries began a physical decline in which her mind became more confused and withdrawn. Around this time, the BBC interviewed her; when asked of her memories of Roland Leighton, she replied: "Who is Roland".
- Vera Brittain's archive was sold in 1971 to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. A further collection of papers, amassed during the writing of the authorised biography of Brittain, was donated to Somerville College Library, Oxford, by Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge.
- On 7 July 2023, Buxton Festival staged the first of a run of performances of The Land of Might-Have-Been, a musical show drawing on existing songs by Ivor Novello, presenting a fictionalised version of Brittain's life in 1914 and 1915, and exploring her relationships with Roland, Edward and Edward's (fictional) gay lover Bobbie Jones, and the impact the war had on them.
- Songwriter and fellow Anglican Pacifist Fellowship member Sue Gilmurray wrote a song in Brittain's memory, titled "Vera".
- Plaques marking Brittain's former homes can be seen at 9 Sidmouth Avenue, Newcastle-under-Lyme; 151 Park Road, Buxton; Doughty Street, Bloomsbury; and 117 Wymering Mansions, Maida Vale, west London. There is also a plaque in the Buxton Pavilion Gardens, commemorating Brittain's residence in the town, though the dates shown on the plaque for her time there are incorrect.
- Brittain was portrayed by Cheryl Campbell in the 1979 BBC2 television adaptation of Testament of Youth.
- She was vilified for speaking out against saturation bombing of German cities through her 1944 booklet, published as Seed of Chaos in Britain and as Massacre by Bombing in the United States.
- Returning to Oxford in 1919 to read history, Brittain found it difficult as "a war survivor" to adjust to life in postwar society. She met Winifred Holtby at Somerville, and a close friendship developed. They both aspired to become established on the London literary scene, and shared various London flats after coming down from Oxford. Eventually Holtby would become part of the Brittain-Catlin household after Brittain's marriage. The bond lasted until Holtby's death from kidney failure in 1935.
- In 1945, the Nazis' Black Book of nearly 3,000 people to be immediately arrested in Britain after a German invasion was shown to include her name.
- On 9 November 2008, BBC One broadcast an hour-length documentary on Brittain as part of its Remembrance Day programmes hosted by Jo Brand titled A Woman in Love and War: Vera Brittain, where she was portrayed by Katherine Manners.
- Some of Brittain's ashes were buried in 1979 in the grave of her husband Sir George Catlin in the churchyard of St James the Great, at Old Milverton in Warwickshire.
- Because You Died, a new selection of Brittain's First World War poetry and prose, edited by Mark Bostridge, was published by Virago in 2008 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armistice.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content