From the moment the Military Wives sang together on BBC Two’s The Choir, their lives changed forever. Their journey entranced the nation, and their story moved millions.

In December 2011, as the nation watched, the Military Wives’ single was named Christmas Number 1. A few weeks earlier they had been just regular women living on military bases: the wives and girlfriends of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan.

Here the wives tell their individual stories in full for the first time – true stories of heartbreak, hope, love and loss that speak to the heart of our country.

From the loneliness and isolation of life on a military base to the challenge of writing to men facing unimaginable horrors – and to the Choir that gave them comfort, solace and and friendship in the darkest of times – these are true, affecting and inspiring accounts straight from the wives themselves.

Sales of this book will benefit the Military Wives Choirs Foundation, a network of choirs that reaches across the military community to provide support, guidance and funding for individual choirs, but first and foremost to bring women closer together through singing. The Foundation is a registered subsidiary charity of SSAFA Forces Help.