THIS week three Welsh families give up their modern comforts for four weeks to go to war as they step back in time to 1944 Blaenavon.

The families will be "Digging for Victory" as part of the BBC Wales successful Coal House programme which will see them live life as it was in a mining community at the end of 1944 in tiny miners' cottages in Stack Square, Blaenavon.

Living under blackout regulations by night, and managing their rations and war work by day, "Digging for Victory" in the vegetable plots will be as essential as digging at the coalface this series, as the families learn to become self-sufficient.

The three families selected from 600 are, the Griffiths' from Ammanford, the Tranter Davies' from Merthyr Tydfil and the Paisey family from Cardiff.

Coal House At War will also involve young men taking part as Bevin Boys (called up to fight in 1944 only to be conscripted to the mines); children as evacuees fleeing the cities from the last German bombing raids; qualified teachers for the classroom drills of the Forties wartime syllabus; and a whole variety of local people doing their real jobs and hobbies but transported back to 1944.

Local people taking part in the programme range from the chapel minister, to the football team, to the jitterbugging dance teachers.

 Rachel Morgan, Series Producer, said, "The families we have chosen are ready to go to war! They've come a long way since the selection process in June.

"They've been psychologically vetted, visited at home by the team and questioned at length about their commitment to discovering their own history and the history of the coalfields at war.

"We're confident that the Griffiths, the Tranter Davies and the Paisey's will cope with rationing, drills, the windswept hillsides of Blaenavon and even Mr Blandford at the mine.

"We're very excited about this series and Coal House At War promises to be an epic of war and peace."

  Coal House At War will be broadcast on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from Monday, October 13 on BBC One Wales.