Kate Adie's Women of World War One (BBC2 9pm)

SUNDERLAND-RAISED Kate Adie is no stranger to being under fire. The BBC's chief news correspondent shot to fame in 1980 when she had to crouch behind a car door while reporting live on the London Iranian Embassy siege. Slightly injured by a gunshot during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, she covered Libya and was shot in the collar bone, but still went on to cover the first Gulf War, as well as conflicts in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia, where Adie injured a leg.

Now a freelance report, you’d have expected the BBC to have asked the indomitable war zone expert to have explained life in the trenches during its centenary celebrations of the First World War. Instead, she's looking at the women left behind in Britain, and discovering they faced plenty of difficulties of their own.

"Life on any frontline in war is tough – I know that – and the Home Front in the First World War demanded both courage and endurance. Many had worked before the war but more tan 1.5m were working for the first time, alongside over a million who volunteered to keep society going by fundraising, housing refugees, running canteens and clubs, knitting garments and providing medical supplies for troops," says Adie.

Welding, driving trams, carrying out operations or even playing football to crowds of thousands of spectators suddenly became jobs suitable for women. Although they were largely still paid less than a man, growing union membership led to better wages and conditions. For many of these women, it was a chance to experience a freedom and independence they'd previously never encountered, but it was also a time of sorrow and uncertainty. Adie says: "Families shattered by bereavement, injured men coming home, and at the end, no national acceptance that women should hold on to the new status and skills they'd acquired. So – what did the war really do for women?"

Long Lost Family (ITV, 9pm)

ON thin-looking Monday we’re up to episode five and in search of family secrets. Sheila Thomas was just 17 when she fell pregnant, and turned to her family for help, little realising they would arrange for her daughter, Jacqueline, to be adopted. Now in her 60s and happily married, Sheila is still haunted by regrets and admits the reason she never had any more children was because she felt she didn't deserve them after failing to fight to keep her daughter. But now she's about to be given a chance to put some of that pain behind her.

Meanwhile, Stephen, 49, has always felt ashamed about being given up for adoption, and the revelation that his biological parents went on to marry and had two more sons has left him with more questions. He’s hoping his birth mother can set his mind at rest.

American Pickers (History, 10pm)

LATE in the day, I’ve noticed that a new series of my favourite pair of pickers (it’s more to do with rusty gold relics than noses) is back on the air. I’ve managed to catch up with Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz spending three episodes in Italy, plus a visit to London to buy a telephone box and tonight the pair are back in the US and given the chance to drive the original Batmobile. while paying a visit to Grizzly Adams actor Dan Hagerty's treasure-filled California home. Later, the pair uncover a rare camel ride, but owner Sean's prices are through the roof.