The Passing Bells the conclusion of the war. The series was announced by the BBC in October 2013, along with other programmes that played a part in the BBC World War I centenary season. It was a Red Planet Production with BBC Worldwide as the distributor. Filming took place in Poland. Telewizja Polska and Apple Film Production were co-producers. The series aired in the pre-watershed time-slot of 7pm, and the script was written for a younger audience and family viewing. The title was taken from the first line of Wilfred Owen's 1917 poem, "Anthem for Doomed Youth": "What passing-bells for these who die
Carol of the Bells because the melody reminded him of hand bells, which begins "Hark! How the bells". It was first aired during the Great Depression, and Wilhousky copyrighted the new lyrics in 1936 and also published the song, despite the song having been published almost two decades earlier in the Ukrainian National Republic. Its initial popularity stemmed largely from Wilhousky's ability to reach a wide audience as his role as arranger for the NBC Symphony Orchestra. It is now strongly associated with Christmas because of its new lyrics, which reference bells, caroling, and the line "merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas". An English variant,