Download or read book Nella Last s Peace written by Patricia Malcolmson and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2010-09-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outwardly Nella's life was probably seen as ordinary; but behind this mask were a lively mind and a persistent pen - a pen that never gave up over almost three decades, reporting, describing, pondering, and disclosing. Nella, 55 when the war ends, writes of what ordinary people felt during those years of privation, hope and the re-building of Britain, providing a moving and inspiring account of the years that shaped the society we live in today. Her diary offers a detailed, moving and humorous narrative of the changing experiences of ordinary people at this time, and thoughts on the aftermath of war and whether 'peace' really meant peace, for everyone.

Download or read book Nella Last s War written by Nella Last and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Next to being a mother, I'd have loved to write books...' Nella Last, Oct 8, 1939 In September 1939, housewife and mother Nella Last began a diary whose entries, in their regularity, length and quality, have created a record of the Second World War which is powerful, fascinating and unique. When war broke out, Nella's younger son joined the army while the rest of the family tried to adapt to civilian life. Writing each day for the "Mass Observation" project, Nella, a middle-aged housewife from the bombed town of Barrow, shows what people really felt during this time. This was the period in which she turned 50, saw her children leave home, and reviewed her life and her marriage - which she eventually compares to slavery. Her growing confidence as a result of her war work makes this a moving (though often comic) testimony, which, covering sex, death and fear of invasion, provides a new, unglamorised, female perspective on the war years.

Download or read book The Diaries of Nella Last written by Patricia Malcolmson and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complete collection of the diaries of Nella Last 'I can never understand how the scribbles of such an ordinary person ... can possibly have value...' So wrote Nella Last in her diary on 2 September 1949. More than sixty years on, tens of thousands of people have read and enjoyed three volumes of her vivid and moving diaries, written during the Second World War and its aftermath as part of the Mass Observation project - and the basis for BAFTA-winning drama Housewife 49 starring Victoria Wood. The Diaries of Nella Last, brings together into a single volume the best of Nella's prolific outpourings, including a great deal of new, unpublished material from the war years. Capturing the everyday trials and horrors of wartime Britain and the nation's transition into peacetime and beyond, Nella's touching and often humorous narrative provides an invaluable historical portrait of what daily life was like for ordinary people in the 1940s and 1950s. Outwardly Nella's life was commonplace; but behind this mask were a penetrating mind and a lively pen. As David Kynaston said on Radio 4, Nella Last 'will come to be seen as one of the major twentieth century English diarists.'

Download or read book Nella Last s War written by Suzie Fleming and published by . This book was released on 1996-06 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Henrietta s War written by Joyce Dennys and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spirited Henrietta wishes she was the kind of doctor's wife who knew exactly how to deal with the daily upheavals of war. But then, everyone in her close-knit Devonshire village seems to find different ways to cope: there's the indomitable Lady B, who writes to Hitler every night to tell him precisely what she thinks of him; the terrifyingly efficient Mrs Savernack, who relishes the opportunity to sit on umpteen committees and boss everyone around; flighty, flirtatious Faith who is utterly preoccupied with the latest hats and flashing her shapely legs; and then there's Charles, Henrietta's hard-working husband who manages to sleep through a bomb landing in their neighbour's garden. With life turned upside down under the shadow of war, Henrietta chronicles the dramas, squabbles and loyal friendships that unfold in her affectionate letters to her 'dear childhood friend' Robert. Warm, witty and perfectly observed, Henrietta's War brings to life a sparkling community of determined troupers who pull together to fight the good fight with patriotic fervour and good humour. Henrietta's War is part of The Bloomsbury Group, a new library of books from the early twentieth-century chosen by readers for readers.

Download or read book Spuds Spam and Eating for Victory written by Katherine Knight and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-21 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The battle to keep the nation fed during the Second World War was waged by an army of workers on the land and the resourcefulness of the housewives on the Kitchen Front. The rationing of food, clothing and other substances played a big part in making sure that everyone had a fair share of whatever was available. In this fascinating book, Katherine Knight looks at how experiences of rationing varied between rich and poor, town and country, and how ingenuous cooks often made a meal from poor ingredients. Charting the developments of the rationing programme throughtout the war and afterwards, Spuds, Spam and Eating for Victory documents the use of substitutions for luxury ingredients not available, resulting in delicacies such as carrot jam and oatmeal sausages. The introduction of Spam in America in the forties led to this canned spiced pork and ham becoming an iconic symbol of the worse period of shortage in the twentieth century. Seventy years after the outbreak of the Second World War, this book listens to some of the people who were young during the conflict share their memories, both sad and funny, of what it was like to eat for Victory.

Download or read book Five Days That Shocked the World written by Nicholas Best and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the momentous days from April 28 to May 2, 1945, the world witnessed the death of two Fascist dictators and the fall of Berlin. Mussolini's capture and execution by Italian partisans, the suicide of Adolf Hitler, and the fall of the German capital signaled the end of the four-year war in the European Theater. In Five Days That Shocked the World, Nicholas Best thrills readers with the first-person accounts of those who lived through this dramatic time. In this valuable work of history, the author's special achievement is weaving together the reports of famous and soon-to-be-famous individuals who experienced the war up close. We follow a young Walter Cronkite as he parachutes into Holland with a Canadian troop; photographer Lee Miller capturing the evidence of Nazi atrocities; the future Pope Benedict returning home and hoping not to get caught and shot after deserting his infantry unit; Audrey Hepburn no longer having to fear conscription into a Wehrmacht brothel; and even an SS doctor's descriptions of a decadent sex orgy in Hitler's bunker. In skillfully synthesizing these personal narratives, Best creates a compelling chronicle of the five earth-shaking days when Fascism lost it death grip on Europe. With this vivid and fast-paced narrative, the author reaffirms his reputation as an expert on the final days of great wars.

Download or read book Mrs Miles s Diary written by Constance Miles and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the outbreak of the Second World War Constance Miles was living with her husband in the pretty Surrey village of Shere. A prolific correspondent with a keen interest in current affairs, Constance kept a war journal from 1939 to 1943, recording in vivid detail what life was like for women on the Home Front. She writes of the impact of evacuees, of food shortages and the creative uses of what food there was, and the fears of the local populace, who wonder how they will cope. She tells of refugees from central Europe billeted in village houses and, later in the war, of the influx of American servicemen. She travels frequently to London, mourning the destruction of familiar landmarks and recording the devastation of the Blitz, but still finds time for tea in the Strand. A woman of strong convictions, Mrs Miles is not afraid to voice her opinion on public figures and her worries about the social upheavals she feels certain to follow the war. But most of all her journals record an overlooked aspect of the conflict: the impact on communities outside of major cities, who endured hardships we find hard to imagine today. It is a fascinating document that makes for compulsive reading.

Download or read book Nella Last s War written by Nella Last and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Nella Last in the 1950s written by Patricia Malcolmson and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2010-10-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I can never understand how the scribbles of such an ordinary person ... can possibly have value.' So wrote Nella Last in her diary on 2 September 1949. Sixty years on, tens of thousands of people have read and enjoyed the first two volumes of her uniquely detailed and moving diaries, written during World War II and its aftermath as part of the Mass Observation project, and the basis for BAFTA-winning drama Housewife 49 starring Victoria Wood. This third compelling volume sees Nella, now in her sixties, writing of what ordinary people felt during those years of growing prosperity in a modernising Britain. Her diary offers a detailed, moving and humorous narrative of daily life at a time that shaped the society we live in today. It is an account that's full of surprises as we learn more about her relationship with 'my husband' (never 'Will') and her fears of nuclear war. Outwardly Nella's life was commonplace; but behind this mask were a penetrating mind and a lively pen. As David Kynaston said on Radio 4, Nella Last 'will come to be seen as one of the major twentieth century English diarists.'

Download or read book Nine Wartime Lives written by James Hinton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-14 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating re-evaluation of the social history of the second world war, looking at the diaries kept by nine 'ordinary' people in wartime Britain for the Mass Observation social research organization.

Download or read book Vietnam written by Nigel Cawthorne and published by Arcturus Publishing. This book was released on 2017-08-11 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vietnam was the first war America lost on the ground. In this fascinating account, historian Nigel Cawthorne traces the conflict from its inception to its traumatic end. He looks at the political events that led tot he war and examines its impact upon both the Americans and the Vietnamese, whose battle for the independence of their country was to leave lingering scars upon the American psyche. Vietnam: A War Lost and Won is an even-handed assessment of a conflict whose wounds would take a generation to heal.

Download or read book Our Longest Days written by Sandra Koa Wing and published by Profile Books(GB). This book was released on 2008 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful, detailed and warming story of the Second World War.

Download or read book All Against All written by Paul Jankowski and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A narrative history, cinematic in scope, of a process that was taking shape in the winter of 1933 as domestic passions around the world colluded to drive governments towards a war few of them wanted and none of them could control. All Against All is the story of the season our world changed from postwar to prewar again. It is a book about the power of bad ideas—exploring why, during a single winter, between November 1932 and April 1933, so much went so wrong. Historian Paul Jankowski reveals that it was collective mentalities and popular beliefs that drove this crucial period that sent nations on the path to war, as much as any rational calculus called “national interest.” Over these six months, collective delusions filled the air. Whether in liberal or authoritarian regimes, mass participation and the crowd mentality ascended. Hitler came to power; Japan invaded Jehol and left the League of Nations; Mussolini looked towards Africa; Roosevelt was elected; France changed governments three times; and the victors of 1918 fell out acrimoniously over war debts, arms, currency, tariffs, and Germany. New hopes flickered but not for long: a world economic conference was planned, only to collapse when the US went its own way. All Against All reconstructs a series of seemingly disparate happenings whose connections can only be appraised in retrospect. As he weaves together the stories of the influences that conspired to lead the world to war, Jankowski offers a cautionary tale relevant for western democracies today. The rising threat from dictatorial regimes and the ideological challenge presented by communism and fascism gave the 1930s a unique face, just as global environmental and demographic crises are coloring our own. While we do not know for certain where these crises will take us, we do know that those of the 1930s culminated in the Second World War.

Download or read book The List of My Desires OME written by Grégoire Delacourt and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Money can buy you freedom. But what about happiness? When Jocelyne looks at herself in the mirror, she sees a middle-aged, married woman who runs a dressmaking shop in a small provincial French town and lives a very ordinary existence. But what happened to all those dreams she had when she was seventeen? Then she wins millions on the lottery and has the chance to change her life for ever. So why does she find herself reluctant to accept the money? To help her decide what to do, she begins to compile a list of her heart's desires, never suspecting for one moment that the decision might be taken out of her hands ...

Download or read book Jambusters written by Julie Summers and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-02-28 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The compelling true story that inspired the hugely successful major ITV drama series HOME FIRES – now in its second season. The Second World War was the WI's finest hour. The whole of its previous history - two decades of educating, entertaining and supporting women and campaigning on women's issues - culminated in the enormous collective responsibility felt by the members to 'do their bit' for Britain. With all the vigour, energy and enthusiasm at their disposal, a third of a million country women set out to make their lives and the lives of those around them more bearable in what they described as 'a period of insanity'. Through archive material and interviews with many WI members, Julie Summers takes us behind the scenes, revealing their nitty-gritty approach to the daily problems presented by the conflict. Jambusters is the fascinating story of how the Women's Institute pulled rural Britain through the war with pots of jam and a spirit of make-do-and-mend.

Download or read book These Wonderful Rumours written by May Smith and published by Virago. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: May Smith is twenty-four at the outbreak of World War Two; at night, the sirens wail, and the young men of the village leave to fight. But still, ordinary life goes on: May goes shopping, plays tennis, takes holidays and even falls in love - while recording it faithfully in her diary. 'May is simply a joy, a bright spark in dark times' The Times