The great explosion: gunpowder, the Great War, and the anatomy of a disaster on the Kent marshes

In April 1916, shortly before the commencement of the Battle of the Somme, a fire started in a vast munitions works located in the Kentish marshes.

The resulting series of explosions killed 108 people and injured many more.

Here, Brian Dillon recreates the events of that terrible day - and, in so doing, sheds a fresh and unexpected light on the British home front in the Great War.