Once a Soldier

Len Tough is brought in for a four-day trial to be accepted into the ranks of the men in scarlet.

Ninety-year old ex-Japanese PoW Wally Hilling and 76-year-old Bill Brierley leave family and friends to join the group.

Leave is cancelled and all 300 Chelsea Pensioners are ordered to the parade ground as HM the Queen takes the salute.

Frank Chambers and Joe Britton are reunited at the Royal Hospital nearly 70 years after they met as Royal Fusiliers.

The hospital needs to raise money to maintain its Grade 1 listed building and for the construction of a new infirmary.

Women are soon to be admitted to the Hospital, but is this all-male bastion prepared for the first ladies in scarlet?

Armistice Day approaches and a dozen men hope to be passed fit enough to attend the Festival of Remembrance.

The Hospital must shape up for the 21st century and the Pensioners make their views clear to the new top brass.

The first female veterans to join the ranks of the Chelsea Pensioners, which has been an all-male institution for over three centuries.