page 374. ‘the romantic fiction author Miss Florence Speed …’: Speed, Diary.
pages 374–5. ‘Three months earlier …’: from reports in The Times, the Daily Sketch.
pages 375–81. ‘More than 100,000 of these had married …’: see Shukert and Scibetta, War Brides; and http://uswarbrides.com.
pages 376–8. ‘Victoria Stevenson …’: Woman’s Own, March 1946.
page 377. ‘But Elizabeth Jane Howard …’: EJH/A.
pages 378–9. ‘When she first met Kenneth Davis …’: MD/A.
pages 379–80. ‘Peggy came from a …’: Margaret H. Wharton, Recollections of a GI War Bride: A Wiltshire Childhood.
pages 380–81. ‘Elizabeth Jane Howard’s account …’: EJH/A.
page 380. ‘As one ex-Wren bride recalled …’: http://uswarbrides.com.
page 381. ‘Fred – Fred – dear Fred …’: from Brief Encounter, script by Noël Coward, directed by David Lean.
pages 382–3. ‘One 8th Army driver …’: cited in Allport, Demobbed.
page 383. ‘One psychologist …’: Reg Ellery, Psychiatric Aspects of Modern Warfare, cited in ibid.
pages 383–4. ‘In the spring of 1946 …’: NB/TIME.
pages 384–5. ‘Or take the case of …’: CL/A, CL/HAT.
pages 385–6. ‘Patience Chadwyck-Healey was another …’: PC-H/A.
page 386. ‘Frances Campbell-Preston was another …’: Campbell-Preston, The Rich Spoils of Time.
page 386. ‘Pip Beck – ex-WAAF …’: PB/A.
page 386. ‘Cora Johnston, née Styles …’: CW/A.
page 386. ‘Flo Mahony, ex-WAAF …’: FM/A.
page 387. ‘Eileen Morgan, née Rouse …’: author interview with Eileen Morgan, née Rouse, 2008.
pages 387–9. ‘Like so many, Margery Baines …’: MB/NGS.
pages 389–90. ‘WAAF Pip Beck …’: PB/A; and author interview with Peter Brimson, 2010.
pages 390–91. ‘After Cora Johnston’s husband …’: CW/A.
page 391. ‘Joy Taverner married …’: author interview with Michael Trindles and Sue Green (son and daughter of Joy Trindles, née Taverner); JoyT/PP.
pages 391–3. ‘In the autumn of 1945 …’: MS/MEM.
pages 393–5. ‘Phyllis Noble was blessed …’: PW/CAW, PW/JS.
page 395. ‘My generation was …’: SH-J/A.
pages 395–6. ‘Frances Partridge was another …’: FP/EL.
page 396. ‘Vera Lynn also …’: author interview with Dame Vera Lynn, 2009.
pages 396–8. ‘WAAF Mike Morris …’: AC/PP.
pages 398–401. ‘In November 1945 …’: AP/A, AP/PP.
page 401. ‘When QA Lorna Bradey …’: LK/MD.
pages 401–3. ‘But the artist Frances Faviell …’: FF/BEAR.
pages 403–4. ‘A Woman in Berlin …’: Anonymous, A Woman in Berlin, translated by Philip Boehm.
page 403. ‘As Virginia Woolf had written …’: from Woolf, ‘Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid’.
page 404. ‘By the time Phyllis Noble …’: PW/JS.
page 404. ‘blizzards were making headlines …’: The Times, the Daily Sketch.
pages 404–5. ‘Maggie Joy Blunt went shopping …’: MO.
pages 405–6. ‘The nation shivered …’: for an account of the cold winter of 1947 see Kynaston, Austerity Britain.
page 406. ‘Bakers were prohibited …’: Daily Express, 12 February 1947.
page 406. ‘The Daily Mirror offered suggestions …’: Daily Mirror, 14 February 1947.
page 406. ‘Margaret Herbertson, who …’: Mar.P/A.
page 406. ‘Thrifty Nella Last …’: NL/NLP.
page 406. ‘Maggie Joy Blunt struggled …’: MO.
pages 407–10. ‘Frances Faviell’s account …’: FF/BEAR.
Chapter 13: There’ll Be Bluebirds
page 411. ‘I’m not clever …’: NL/NLP.
page 412. ‘Mary Grieve, the editor …’: Grieve, Millions Made My Story.
page 412. ‘The rich could not pay more …’: Bloom, Trilogy.
page 412. ‘Frances Campbell-Preston’s family …’: Campbell-Preston, The Rich Spoils of Time.
page 413. ‘The war certainly taught …’: BC/YO; and Henry Cloud, Barbara Cartland: Crusader in Pink.
page 413. ‘Allowing for the general impoverishment …’: George Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. 4.
pages 413–14. ‘In 1948 the sociologist …’: Jephcott, Rising Twenty.
page 414. ‘Nella Last began to assess …’: NL/NLP.
page 415. ‘I’m having a deliberately …’: MO.
page 415. ‘The holiday-camp phenomenon …’: Valerie A. Tedder, Post-war Blues.
pages 415–16. At the other end of the social scale …’: MP-D/NY.
pages 416–19. ‘The New Look …’: see Pearson Phillips, ‘The New Look’, in Michael Sissons and Philip French, eds., Age of Austerity; and Harry Hopkins, The New Look: A Social History of the Forties and Fifties in Britain.
page 417. ‘as Anne Scott-James … insisted …’: letter to The Times, 29 September 1947.
page 417. ‘Much as the average woman …’: letter to The Times, 1 October 1947.
page 418. ‘Women today are taking …’: Mabel Ridealgh, MP, cited in Sissons and French, eds., Age of Austerity.
page 418. ‘Oh yes, I’d have liked …’: TR/A.
pages 418–19, 420. ‘Shirley Goodhart was one …’: MO.
page 420. ‘Maggie Joy Blunt wrote …’: MO.
page 420. ‘The romantic novelist …’: Speed, Diary.
page 421. ‘young women like Doffy Brewer …’: DB/A.
pages 421–4. ‘After losing two fiancés …’: HF/LIME; HF/THURS; and author interview with Robert Bhatia.
pages 424–8. ‘The idea of marriage …’: PW/JS; PW/CCA; PW/A.
pages 428–9. ‘On Day One a Leeds woman …’: examples cited in Addison, Now the War Is Over.
pages 429–30. ‘Domestic servant Margaret Powell …’: Powell, Climbing the Stairs.
pages 430–31. ‘In his essay, “Woman’s Place” …’: William Emrys Williams, ‘Women’s Role’, in Current Affairs Magazine, 11 January 1947.
page 432. ‘Shirley Goodhart was one young wife …’: MO.
page 432. ‘post-war career advice …’: examples from Everywoman, 1948.
pages 432–4. ‘Since the age of sixteen …’: PW/JS; PW/CCA; PW/A.
pages 434–6. ‘For Joan Wyndham …’: JW/AO.
pages 436–7. ‘Nina Bawden’s creative talents …’: NB/TIME.
page 437. ‘Grossly unfair …’: cited in Wicks, Welcome Home.
page 437. ‘Ursula Bloom, who …’: Bloom, Trilogy.
page 438. ‘In the same vein, Barbara Cartland …’: BC/YO.
page 438. ‘the social researcher Ferdinand Zweig …’: Ferdinand Zweig, Women’s Life and Labour.
pages 438–9. ‘In 1947 a galaxy …’: Olwen W. Campbell, The Report of a Conference on The Feminine Point of View.
page 442. ‘First, a wedding photograph …’: HL/CI; author correspondence with Christopher Long.
page 442. ‘Ilkley Road, Barrow-in-Furness …’: NL/NLP.
pages 442–3. ‘A cottage in Slough …’: see Garfield, Our Hidden Lives.
page 444. ‘A summer day in Piccadilly …’: MH/JOURNAL.
pages 444–5. ‘Ham Spray House …’: FP/EL.
page 444. ‘Oundle, Northamptonshire …’: LK/MD; author interview with Ralph Kite (son of Ralph and Lorna Kite, née Bradey).
page 444. A railway station in Sussex …’: AP/A.
pages 444–5. ‘Ontario, Canada …’: MB/A.
page 445. ‘Edinburgh: Jean Park …’: JP/A.
pages 445–6. ‘Blackheath, London …’: author interviews with Elizabeth Paterson (Mary Cornish’s niece), 2009, and Maggie Paterson (niece-in-law), 2009; and private papers of Mary Cornish, courtesy of Maggie Paterson.
p
age 446. ‘Leamington Spa, Warwickshire …’: CM/MM.
page 447. ‘South Kensington …’: FF/CHELSEA; author interview with Mrs Pamela Hanbury.
pages 447–8. North Berwick, the Firth of Forth …’: KW/A.
Select Bibliography
Biography, Memoirs, Diaries, Autobiography
The impossibility of doing full justice to the vast abundance of war memoirs that exists will be apparent to anybody researching the period, and this selection represents the tip of a sizeable iceberg.
Anderson, Verily, Spam Tomorrow, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1956.
Andrews, Lucilla, No Time for Romance, Harrap and Co., London, 1977.
Anonymous, A Woman in Berlin, trans. Philip Boehm, Virago, London, 2005.
Barraud, E. M., Set My Hand upon the Plough, Littlebury and Co., Worcester, 1946.
Bawden, Nina, In My Own Time: Almost an Autobiography, Virago, London, 1995.
Beck, Pip, A WAAF in Bomber Command, Goodall Publications, London and St Albans, 1989.
Bloom, Ursula, Trilogy, Hutchinson, London, 1954.
Bowen, Elizabeth, ‘London, 1940’, in Collected Impressions, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1950.
Brewer Kerr, Dorothy, The Girls Behind the Guns, Robert Hale, London, 1990.
Brittain, Vera, Testament of Experience: An Autobiographical Story of the Years 1925–1950, Victor Gollancz, London, 1957.
Broad, Richard and Suzie Fleming, eds., Nella Last’s War: A Mother’s Diary 1939–45, Falling Wall Press, Bristol, 1981.
Bruley, Sue, ed., Working for Victory: A Diary of Life in a Second World War Factory, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2001.
Calder, Jenni, The Nine Lives of Naomi Mitchison, Virago, London, 1997.
Campbell-Preston, Frances, The Rich Spoils of Time, The Dovecote Press, Wimborne Minster, 2006.
Cartland, Barbara, The Years of Opportunity 1939–1945, Hutchinson and Co., London, 1948.
Clayton, Aileen, The Enemy Is Listening: The Story of the Y Service, Hutchinson and Co., London, 1980.
Cloud, Henry, Barbara Cartland: Crusader in Pink, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1979.
Cooper, Diana, Trumpets from the Steep, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1960.
Day-Lewis, Tamasin, ed., Last Letters Home, Macmillan, London, 1995.
Donnelly, Peter, ed., Mrs Milburn’s Diaries: An Englishwoman’s Day-to-Day Reflections 1939–45, Harrap, London, 1979.
Du Maurier, Angela, It’s Only the Sister: An Autobiography, Peter Davis, London, 1951.
Faviell, Frances, A Chelsea Concerto, Cassell and Co., London, 1959.
Faviell, Frances, The Dancing Bear: Berlin de Profundis, Rupert Hart-Davis, London, 1954.
Forrester, Helen, By the Waters of Liverpool, The Bodley Head, 1981.
Forrester, Helen, Lime Street at Two, The Bodley Head, 1985.
Forrester, Helen, Thursday’s Child, Hodder and Stoughton, 1959.
Garfield, Simon, ed., We Are at War: The Remarkable Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times, Ebury Press, London, 2005.
Grenfell, Joyce, Joyce Grenfell: The Time of My Life, Entertaining the Troops: Her Wartime Journals, ed. James Roose-Evans, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1989.
Grieve, Mary, Millions Made My Story, Victor Gollancz, London, 1964.
Hampton, Janie, ed., Joyce and Ginnie – the Letters of Joyce Grenfell and Virginia Graham, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1997.
Henrey, Mrs Robert, The Farm in Normandy and The Return to the Farm, J. M. Dent and Sons, London, 1952.
Henrey, Mrs Robert, London Under Fire, J. M. Dent and Sons, London, 1982.
Henrey, Mrs Robert, Madeleine’s Journal, J. M. Dent and Sons, London, 1953.
Hewins, Mary, Mary, after the Queen, Oxford University Press, 1986.
Hodgson, Vere, Few Eggs and No Oranges: The Diaries of Vere Hodgson 1940–45, Persephone Books, London, 1999.
Howard, Elizabeth Jane, Slipstream: A Memoir, Macmillan, 2002.
Hurst, Margery, No Glass Slipper, Sphere Books, London, 1968.
Huxley, Elspeth, Atlantic Ordeal, Chatto and Windus, London, 1941.
Jolly, Margaretta, ed., Dear Laughing Motorbyke: Letters from Women Welders of the Second World War, Scarlet Press, London, 1977.
Joseph, Shirley, If Their Mothers Only Knew: An Unofficial Account of Life in the Women’s Land Army, Faber and Faber, London, 1946.
Katin, Zelma, Clippie: The Autobiography of a War Time Conductress, John Gifford, London, 1944.
Kite, Lorna, Mentioned in Despatches: World War II as Seen through the Eyes of a Nurse, unpublished, Archive of Working-class Autobiographies, Brunel University.
Koa Wing, Sandra, ed., Our Longest Days: A People’s History of the Second World War, Profile Books, London, 2008.
Lamb, Christian, I Only Joined for the Hat: Redoubtable Wrens at War: Their Trials Tribulations and Triumphs, Bene Factum Publishing, London, 2007.
Leslie, Anita, A Story Half-told: A Wartime Autobiography, Hutchinson, London, 1983.
Levine, Joshua, Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle for Britain, Ebury Press, London, 2007.
Long, Helen, Change into Uniform: An Autobiography 1939–1946, Terence Dalton, Lavenham, 1978.
MacCarthy, Fiona, Last Curtsey: The End of the Debutantes, Faber and Faber, London, 2006.
Malcolmson, Patricia and Robert, eds., Nella Last’s Peace: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife, 49, Profile Books, London, 2008.
Marnham, Patrick, Wild Mary: The Life of Mary Wesley, Chatto and Windus, London, 2006.
Mitchison, Naomi, Among You Taking Notes: The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison, ed. Dorothy Sheridan, Victor Gollancz, London, 1985.
Mundahl-Harris, Sylvia, The View from the Cookhouse Floor, Caedmon of Whitby, 1995.
Nicholson, Mavis, What Did You Do in the War, Mummy? Women in World War II, Chatto and Windus, London, 1995.
Nixon, Barbara, Raiders Overhead: A Diary of the London Blitz, Scolar Press, London, in association with Gulliver Publishing Co., Banbury, 1980.
Partridge, Frances, Everything to Lose: Diaries 1945–1960, Victor Gollancz, London, 1985.
Partridge, Frances, A Pacifist’s War, The Hogarth Press, London, 1978.
Pawley, Margaret, In Obedience to Instructions: FANY with the SOE in the Mediterranean, Leo Cooper, Barnsley, 1999.
Perry, Margaret, untitled memoir, unpublished, Archive of Working-class Autobiographies, Brunel University.
Powell, Margaret, Climbing the Stairs, Peter Davies, London, 1969.
Pym, Barbara, A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Letters and Diaries, Macmillan, London, 1984.
Raynes, Rozelle, Maid Matelot, Nautical Publishing Company, Lymington, Hampshire, 1971.
Scannell, Dorothy, Dolly’s War, Macmillan, London, 1975.
Smith, Lyn, Young Voices: British Children Remember the Second World War, Viking, London, 2007.
Speed, Florence, Diary of Miss F. M. Speed, Imperial War Museum, London, Department of Documents, IWM 86/45/2.
Symington, Monica, A Memoire: The War and Its Aftermath, Imperial War Museum, London, Department of Documents, IWM 01/19/1.
Taylor, Eric, Heroines of World War II, Robert Hale, London, 1991.
Tedder, Valerie A., Post-war Blues, Leicester City Council, 1999.
Townsend, Colin and Eileen, War Wives: A Second World War Anthology, Grafton Books, London and Glasgow, 1989.
Wayne, Hilary, Two Odd Soldiers, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1946.
Wells, Maureen, Entertaining Eric: A Wartime Love Story, Ebury Press, London, 2007.
Wharton, Margaret H., Recollections of a G.I. War Bride: A Wiltshire Childhood, Alan Sutton Publishing, Gloucester, 1984.
White, Doris, D for Doris, V for Victory, Oakleaf Books in association with Peoples Press, Milton Keynes, 1981.
Willmott, Phyllis, Coming of Age in Wartime, Peter Owen, London, 1995.
Willmott, Phyllis, A Green Girl, Peter Owen, London, 1983.
Willmott, Phyllis, Joys and Sorr
ows: Fragments from the Post-war Years, Peter Owen, London, 1995.
Woolf, Virginia, The Diaries of Virginia Woolf, vol. 5, ed. Anne Olivier Bell, The Hogarth Press, London, 1984.
Wyndham, Joan, Anything Once, Sinclair-Stevenson, London, 1992.
Wyndham, Joan, Love Is Blue: A Wartime Diary, Heinemann, London, 1986.
Wyndham, Joan, Love Lessons: A Wartime Diary, Heinemann, London, 1985.
History, Sociology, Documentation, Advice
Books about the Second World War proliferate at an alarming rate; few researchers can hope to do more than skim the surface, and the following list is highly selective. Material on the post-war world is thinner on the ground. I have accordingly given my choice of books on the later 1940s a section to itself.
Pre-war and Second World War
Adam, Ruth, A Woman’s Place 1910–1975, Chatto and Windus, London, 1975.
Adie, Kate, Corsets to Camouflage: Women and War, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 2003.
Anderson, Bette, We Just Got on with It: British Women in World War II, Picton Publishing, Chippenham, 1994.
Beevor, Antony, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, Viking, London, 2009.
Bletchley Park, The Bletchley Park War Diaries July 1939–August 1945, printed in aid of the Bletchley Park Trust.
Boston, Anne and Jenny Hartley, eds., Wave Me Goodbye and Hearts Undefeated, Virago, London, 2003.
Bowley, Ruth, Women – in a Man’s World? Bureau of Current Affairs, London, 1949.
Braybon, Gail and Penny Summerfield, Out of the Cage: Women’s Experiences in Two World Wars, Pandora, London, 1987.
Briggs, Asa, Go to It! Working for Victory on the Home Front 1939–1945, Mitchell Beazley, London, 2000.
Briggs, Susan, Keep Smiling Through: The Home Front 1939–45, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1975.
Brittain, Vera, Lady into Woman: A History of Women from Victoria to Elizabeth II, Andrew Dakers, London, 1953.
Calder, Angus, The Myth of the Blitz, Jonathan Cape, London, 1991.
Calder, Angus, The People’s War: Britain 1939–1945, Jonathan Cape, London, 1969.
Costello, John, Love, Sex and War: Changing Values 1939–1945, William Collins Sons and Co., London, 1985.
De Courcy, Anne, Debs at War: 1939–1945: How Wartime Changed Their Lives, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2005.
Donnelly, Mark, Britain in the Second World War, Routledge, London and New York, 1999.
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