Millions Like Us

by Virginia Nicholson

  Gardiner, Juliet, The Thirties: An Intimate History, HarperPress, London, 2010.

  Gardiner, Juliet, Wartime Britain 1939–1945, Headline, London, 2004.

  Goldsmith, Margaret, Women and the Future, Lindsay Drummond, London, 1946.

  Goralski, Robert, World War II Almanac 1931–1945: A Political and Military Record, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1981.

  Graves, Charles, Women in Green: The Story of the W.V.S., Heinemann, London, 1948.

  Gubar, Susan, ‘ “This is My Rifle, This is My Gun”: World War II and the Blitz on Women’, in Margaret Randolph Higonnet et al., eds., Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987.

  Halsey, A. H., ed., Trends in British Society since 1900: A Guide to the Changing Social Structure of Britain, The Macmillan Press, London and Basingstoke, 1972.

  Harrisson, Tom, Living through the Blitz, Collins, London, 1976.

  Hayes, Denis, Challenge of Conscience: The Story of the Conscientious Objectors of 1939–1949, Allen and Unwin, London, 1949.

  Heath, F. F., ed., A Churchill Anthology: Selections from the Writings and Speeches of Sir Winston Churchill, Odhams Books, London, 1965.

  Hinton, James, Women, Social Leadership, and the Second World War: Continuities of Class, Oxford University Press, 2002.

  Holdsworth, Angela, Out of the Doll’s House: The Story of Women in the Twentieth Century, BBC Books, London, 1988.

  Howlett, Peter, Fighting with Figures: A Statistical Digest of the Second World War, HMSO (Central Statistical Office), 1995.

  Hylton, Stuart, Their Darkest Hour: The Hidden History of the Home Front 1939–1945, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2001.

  Keegan, John, The Second World War, Hutchinson, London, 1989.

  Kramer, Ann, Land Girls and Their Impact, Remember When, an imprint of Pen and Sword Books, Barnsley, 2008.

  Lewis, Roy and Angus Maude, The English Middle Classes, Phoenix House, London, 1949.

  Longmate, Norman, ed., The Home Front: An Anthology of Personal Experience 1938–1945, Chatto and Windus, London, 1981.

  Longmate, Norman, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War, Hutchinson, London, 1971.

  Lynn, Vera, with Robin Cross and Jenny de Gex, Unsung Heroines: The Women Who Won the War, Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1990.

  Marchant, Hilde, Women and Children Last: A Woman Reporter’s Account of the Battle of Britain, Victor Gollancz, London, 1941.

  McBryde, Brenda, Quiet Heroines: Nurses of the Second World War, Chatto and Windus, London, 1985.

  Menzies, Janet, Children of the Doomed Voyage, John Wiley, Chichester, 2005.

  Minns, Raynes, Bombers and Mash: The Domestic Front 1939–1945, Virago, 1980.

  Nagorski, Tom, Miracles on the Water: The Heroic Survivors of the U-boat Attack on the SS City of Benares – One of the Great Lost Stories of WWII, Constable and Robinson, London, 2007.

  Nicholson, Jenny, Kiss the Girls Goodbye, Hutchinson and Co., London, 1944.

  Noakes, Lucy, Women in the British Army: War and the Gentle Sex 1907–1948, Routledge, London, 2006.

  Orwell, George, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. 4, eds. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, Penguin Books in association with Secker and Warburg, Harmondsworth, 1970.

  Panter-Downes, Mollie, London War Notes 1939–45, ed. William Shawn, Longman, London, 1972.

  Powell, Anne, ed., Shadows of War: British Women’s Poetry of the Second World War, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1999.

  Sackville-West, Vita, The Women’s Land Army, Imperial War Museum, London, 1944.

  Scott, Peggy, British Women at War, Hutchinson and Co., London, 1940.

  Sheridan, Dorothy, ed., Wartime Women: An Anthology of Women’s Wartime Writing for Mass Observation 1937–45, Heinemann, London, 1990.

  Shukert, Elfrieda Berthiaume and Barbara Smith Scibetta, War Brides of World War II, Presidio Press, Novato, CA, 1988.

  Smith, Harold L., ‘The Effect of the War on the Status of Women’, in H. L. Smith, ed., War and Social Change: British Society in the Second World War, Manchester University Press, 1986.

  Summerfield, Penny, Reconstructing Women’s Wartime Lives: Discourse and Subjectivity in Oral Histories of the Second World War, Manchester University Press, 1998.

  Summerfield, Penny, Women Workers in the Second World War: Production and Patriarchy in Conflict, Croom Helm, London, 1984.

  Taylor, Eric, Forces Sweethearts: Service Romances in World War II, Robert Hale, London, 1990.

  Tyrer, Nicola, Sisters in Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2008.

  Tyrer, Nicola, They Fought in the Fields: The Women’s Land Army: The Story of a Forgotten Victory, Sinclair-Stevenson, London, 1996.

  Waller, Jane, and Michael Vaughan-Rees, Women in Wartime: The Role of Women’s Magazines 1939–1945, Macdonald and Co., London, 1987.

  Watkins, Gwen, Cracking the Luftwaffe Codes: The Secrets of Bletchley Park, Greenhill Books, London, 2006.

  Wicks, Ben, No Time to Wave Goodbye, Bloomsbury, London, 1988.

  Williams-Ellis, Amabel, Women in War Factories, Gollancz, London, 1943.

  Woolf, Virginia, ‘Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid’, in The Death of the Moth and Other Essays, The Hogarth Press, London, 1942.

  Zweig, Ferdinand, Women’s Life and Labour, Gollancz, London, 1952.

  Post-war

  Addison, Paul, Now the War Is Over: A Social History of Britain 1945–51, BBC and Jonathan Cape, London, 1985.

  Allport, Alan, Demobbed: Coming Home after the Second World War, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009.

  Campbell, Olwen W., The Report of a Conference on The Feminine Point of View, Williams and Norgate, London, 1952.

  Garfield, Simon, ed., Our Hidden Lives: The Remarkable Diaries of Post-war Britain, Ebury Press, London, 2004.

  Hennessy, Peter, Never Again: Britain 1945–51, Jonathan Cape, London, 1992.

  Hodson, J. L., The Way Things Are: Being Some Accounts of Journeyings, Meetings, and What Was Said to me in Britain between May, 1945 and Jan., 1947, Victor Gollancz, London, 1947.

  Hopkins, Harry, The New Look: A Social History of the Forties and Fifties in Britain, Secker and Warburg, London, 1963.

  Howard, Kenneth, Sex Problems of the Returning Soldier, Sydney Pemberton, Lever Street, Manchester, 1945.

  Jephcott, Pearl, Rising Twenty: Notes on Some Ordinary Girls, Faber and Faber, London, 1948.

  Kynaston, David, Austerity Britain 1945–1951, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2007.

  Lewis, Jane, Women in Britain since 1945: Women, Family, Work and the State in the Post-war Years, Blackwell, Oxford, 1992.

  Mass Observation, Peace and the Public, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1947.

  Newsom, John, The Education of Girls, Faber and Faber, London, 1948.

  Sissons, Michael, and Philip French, eds., Age of Austerity, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1963.

  Slater, Eliot and Moya Woodside, Patterns of Marriage: A Study of Marriage Relationships in the Urban Working Classes, Cassell and Co., London, 1951.

  Summers, Julie, Stranger in the House: Women’s Stories of Men Returning from the Second World War, Simon and Schuster, London, New York etc., 2008.

  Wicks, Ben, Welcome Home: True Stories of Soldiers Returning from World War II, Bloomsbury, London, 1991.

  Wilson, Elizabeth, Only Halfway to Paradise: Women in Postwar Britain 1945–1968, Tavistock Publications, London, New York, 1980.

  Winter, Jay, ‘The Demographic Consequences of the War’, in H. L. Smith, ed., War and Social Change: British Society in the Second World War, Manchester University Press, 1986.

  Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Ina, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls and Consumption 1939–1955, Oxford University Press, 2000.

  Archives and Websites

  The American War Bride Experience: http://uswarbrides.com.

  BBC P
eople’s War: www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar.

  Collection of Working-class Autobiographies, Brunel University.

  The D-Day and Normandy Fellowship website: http://ddnf.org.uk/.

  The Imperial War Museum.

  Mass Observation Archive, Sussex University Library.

  Newspaper Collection, British Library at Colindale.

  The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online: www.oxforddnb.com.

  The Royal Navy website: www.royalnavy.mod.uk.

  The Wartime Memories Project: www.wartimememories.co.uk.

  World War-2.net: www.worldwar-2.net.

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not have been possible without the help of a large number of people; I am grateful to all of them. With such a range of contributions, it seems invidious to prioritise my thanks, nevertheless I owe a special debt of gratitude to Eleo Gordon, my tireless and magnificent editor at Viking, whose idea the book was, and another one to my husband William Nicholson, who has never failed to encourage, advise, read and reread. Affectionate thanks also to my agent, Caroline Dawnay, and to Venetia Butterfield at Viking for her confidence in me.

  I am particularly grateful to a number of people who have given me special help; thank you to the late Russell Ash, Lord Briggs, Janie Hampton, Nicola Tyrer and Sarah Waters. I would also like to acknowledge specific research assistance from Paul Beecham, Henrietta Bredin, Anna Fewster, Sabine Goodwin, Miles Mantle, Julia Nicholson and Teddy Nicholson.

  The book would not exist in its present form without the inclusion of interviews with the elderly ladies who contributed their memories, their time and their hospitality: the late Verily Anderson, Kaye Bastin, Mavis Batey, the late Pip Beck, Anne Olivier Bell, Dorothy Brewer-Kerr, Mary Davis, Pat Evans, Dame Mary Glen-Haig, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Sheila Hugh-Jones, Joan Kelsall, Christian Lamb, Dame Vera Lynn, Flo Mahony, Patience Maxwell, Eileen Morgan, Jean Park, Marguerite Patten, Margaret Pawley, Isa Rankin, Thelma Rendle, Vera Roberts, Betty Smith, Marjorie Smith, Joan Tagg, Kay Wight, Cora Williams and Phyllis Willmott.

  In some cases I have spoken to or corresponded with the friends or relatives of women who wanted a helping hand or could no longer speak for themselves: thank you to Judith Bastin, Robert Bhatia, Peter Brimson, Mary Clayton, Bess Cummings, Charlotte Deane, Catherine Green, Sue Green, Jonathan Keates, Ralph Kite, Christopher Long, Maggie Paterson, Elizabeth Paterson, Alexandra and Gordon Tregear and Michael Trindles.

  Thanks, too, to the people who were so helpful in bringing me together with my interviewees: Ruth Boreham, Richard Cable, Martyn Cox, Sue Gibbs, Janet Hodgson, Jonathan Hugh-Jones, Ruth Jennings, Virginia Lewis-Jones, Anne Morrison, Deborah Mulhearn, Jane Myles, Tom Nagorski, Alastair Upton, and Tessa Volders. A number of kind people replied to my requests for memories or information: my thanks to Mary-Rose Benton, Mrs T. Dufort, Mrs V. Falck, Jean Faulks, Averil Kear, Anne Lewis-Smith, Anne McGravie, Joyce Openshaw, Patricia Potton, Beryl Staley and Philip Wall.

  Librarians and archivists are my heroes (and heroines, of course). Particular thanks to Fiona Courage, Karen Watson and their colleagues at the Mass Observation archive at Sussex University; also to the staff of the London Library; and to Sophie Bridges, Paula Gerrard, Emma Goodrum, Dr Lesley Hall, Isabel Hernandez, David Jamieson, Matthew McMurray, Dr Juliette Pattinson, Katrina Presedo, Andrew Riley, Andy Smith and Julie-Ann Vickers.

  Research for a book of this kind can lead an author on some fascinating diversions through academic institutions, local history societies, oral history societies, military associations, niche magazines and the like; en route, I’ve had help from a number of people involved with such organisations, notably Ruth Brown, Squadron Leader Beryl E. Escott, Pat Farrington, Juliette Gammon, Frank Haslam, Steve Humphries, Dr Irene Maver, Naomi McMahon, Mrs Julie Somay, Lis Tighe, Eve Watson, Dave Welsh, Andrew Westwood-Bate, Jo White, John Wilson, and Angela Wintle. I’ve also been given useful leads by Andrew Bibby, Daniel Hahn, Sam Humphrey and Janet Menzies.

  My year-long quest to unearth the post-war career of the mysterious author Frances Faviell deserves a paragraph of acknowledgements to itself. I was spurred on by James Beechey, Frances Christie, Chris Faviell, Sabina ffrench Blake, Mrs Peggy Guggenheim, Duff Hart-Davis, Bea Hemmings, Wendy Hitchmough, Max Hodgkin, Colin McKenzie, Richard Morphet, John Moynihan, Jonathan Prichard, Richard Shone, Father Jonathan Swindells and Henry Wyndham. Our joint efforts were finally crowned when I managed to trace firstly Mrs Pamela Hanbury, whose mother, it turned out, had been Faviell’s closest friend and finally (through the help of Stephen Woolley) John Parker, Faviell’s son.

  A number of friends and strangers have offered kind and unprompted assistance on different occasions. For this, grateful thanks to Alex Dufort, Dr Margaretta Jolly, David Kynaston, Dr James Le Fanu, Dr David Mellor, Di Speirs and Julie Summers. Answers to specific queries were ably supplied by Liz Bassett and Felicity Thompson.

  The challenge of indexing a book studded with namechecks has been splendidly met by Douglas Matthews; my thanks, too, to Katherine Stroud and to the team at Viking: Ben Brusey, Lesley Hodgson, Keith Taylor and David Watson who have been diligent and enthusiastic throughout.

  *

  In addition, the author gratefully acknowledges the kind permission of copyright holders to quote from a number of authors and sources, as follows: lines from ‘September 1, 1939’: Copyright © 1940, The Estate of W. H. Auden; excerpts from In My Own Time by Nina Bawden reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London on behalf of Nina Bawden, copyright © Nina Bawden; ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, written by Nat Burton and Walter Kent, used by Permission of Shapiro Bernstein & Co. Limited, all rights reserved, International Copyright secured; ‘There’ll Always be an England’, words and music by Ross Parker and Hugh Charles © Copyright 1939 Dash Music Company Limited, all rights reserved, International Copyright Secured, reprinted by permission; Brief Encounter © NC Aventales AG 1945, www.noelcoward.com, use of quote by permission of Alan Brodie Representation Ltd, www.alanbrodie.com; excerpts from London Under Fire © Mrs Robert Henrey, and A Farm in Normandy and The Return to the Farm by Madeleine Henrey both published by J. M. Dent & Sons, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group, London; material from the Mass Observation archive reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London, on behalf of the Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive, copyright © The Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive; extracts from A Pacifist’s War and Everything to Lose, copyright © Frances Partridge, reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN; excerpts from Change into Uniform reprinted with thanks to the late author and journalist Helen Long, née Vlasto. Extracts from Love Lessons by Joan Wyndham (Heinemann, 1985), Love is Blue by Joan Wyndham (Heinemann, 1986) and Anything Once by Joan Wyndham (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992) are printed by permission of United Agents Ltd on behalf of The Estate of Joan Wyndham. Acknowledgements are due to the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, with particular thanks to Gordon and Alexandra Tregear, for the use of unpublished excerpts from the writings of Monica Symington née Littleboy, and to Mrs Ouida V. Ascroft for the use of unpublished excerpts from the writings of Miss F. M. Speed, both now held in the Department of Documents at the Imperial War Museum.

  Permission to quote from A WAAF in Bomber Command is given by Peter Brimson, Pip Beck’s son; quotations from The Years of Opportunity by Barbara Cartland reprinted by kind permission of Cartland Promotions; permission to use quotations from her own work, without payment, is granted by Margaret G. Pawley; and quotation from the lyric ‘Not a Cloud in the Sky’ by kind permission of Peermusic (UK) Ltd, London. Particular thanks to John Parker for his (retrospective) permission for the use of material from two of his mother’s books: The Dancing Bear – Berlin de Profundis, published by Rupert Hart-Davis, and A Chelsea Concerto, published by Cassell plc, a division of the Orion Publishing Group, both by Frances Faviell.

  Grateful thanks too, to Rachel Anderson for permissio
n to quote from Spam Tomorrow by Verily Anderson, ‘Payment for use of the quotations selected, waived as agreed by Verily before her death on 16 July 2010’; to Mrs Dorothy Brewer-Kerr for permission to quote excerpts from Girls Behind the Guns; to Christopher Clayton, for permission to quote from The Enemy is Listening: The Story of the Y Service by Aileen Clayton; to Robert Bhatia on behalf of his mother, Helen Forrester, for the use of quotations from By the Waters of Liverpool, Lime Street at Two and Thursday’s Child; to Ralph Kite, the son of Lorna Kite, for the use of quotations from the unpublished writings of his mother; to Susan S. Green for the use of quotations from the published and unpublished writings of her mother, Joy Trindles; and to Mrs Phyllis Willmott for permitting quotations from Coming of Age in Wartime, Joys and Sorrows and from her unpublished diary held in Churchill College Archive.

  *

  Acknowledgements are also due to the following whose works have been quoted from: Lucilla Andrews, No Time for Romance; A Woman in Berlin; Ursula Bloom, Trilogy; Vera Brittain, Lady into Woman; Sue Bruley, ed., Working for Victory; Frances Campbell-Preston, The Rich Spoils of Time; Joyce Grenfell, The Time of My Life; Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century; Elizabeth Jane Howard, Slipstream; Kenneth Howard, Sex Problems of the Returning Soldier; Margery Hurst, No Glass Slipper; Shirley Joseph, If Their Mothers Only Knew: An Unofficial Account of Life in the Women’s Land Army; Zelma Katin, Clippie; Christian Lamb, I Only Joined for the Hat; Hilde Marchant, Women and Children Last: A Woman Reporter’s Account of the Battle of Britain; Judy Milburn and Peter Donnelly on behalf of the estate of Clara Milburn for permission to quote from Mrs Milburn’s Diaries: An Englishwoman’s Day-to-Day Reflections 1939–1945; Naomi Mitchison, Among You Taking Notes; Jenny Nicholson, Kiss the Girls Goodbye; quotations from Iris Ogilvie from Vera Lynn, with Robin Cross and Jenny de Gex, Unsung Heroines: The Women Who Won the War; Margaret Powell, Climbing the Stairs; Barbara Pym, A Very Private Eye; Rozelle Raynes, Maid Matelot; Dorothy Scannell, Dolly’s War; Maureen Wells, Entertaining Eric; Margaret Wharton, Recollections of a GI War Bride: A Wiltshire Childhood; Virginia Woolf, The Diaries of Virginia Woolf and ‘Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid’, from The Death of the Moth and Other Essays.