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Nella Last's Peace: The Post-War Diaries Of Housewife, 49
Nella Last's War established a housewife and mother from Barrow-in-Furness as one of the most powerful and moving voices of the Second World War, and inspired the award-winning television drama Housewife, 49. In this next instalment of her unique diaries, Nella Last describes how ordinary people re-built their lives after the war was over.While the Allies' victory was a ca...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
March 1st 2009
by Profile Books
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Bettie
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Imelda Staunton reads from the postwar diaries of 'Housewife, 49'.
Shortly before the start of World War Two, Nella Last, a Cumbrian housewife, joined the Mass Observation Project. Her role was to record her day-to-day experiences in a diary. It recently became the basis for the television drama, Housewife, 49. At the end of the war, when many others in the Project stopped writing their diaries, Nella continued and it became one of the longest diaries in the English language.
...more
Nella Last’s Peace, by Robert and Patricia Malcolmson, Narrated by Carole Boyd, Produced by BBC Audio Books, downloaded from audible.com.
Nella Last's War introduced us to a housewife and mother from Barrow-in-Furness, who began a journal in 1939 for the Mass Observation Project-a research project collecting information on people’s daily lives. Unlike most of the diarists, Nella kept her diary sending in weekly accounts from 1939 to 1966. She had always wanted to be a writer, and in...more
Nella Last's War introduced us to a housewife and mother from Barrow-in-Furness, who began a journal in 1939 for the Mass Observation Project-a research project collecting information on people’s daily lives. Unlike most of the diarists, Nella kept her diary sending in weekly accounts from 1939 to 1966. She had always wanted to be a writer, and in...more
During WWII Great Britain formed an organization, called Mass Observation, to help monitor the average citizen's response to the war. They put ads in newspapers that asked people to submit diary entries on a regular basis. Nella Last, 49 years old at the time, started writing a diary for this group.
Years later her diary entries were found and compiled into several books. This is one of them. There was a movie, Housewife, 49, based on her experiences during the war (based on the bo...more
Years later her diary entries were found and compiled into several books. This is one of them. There was a movie, Housewife, 49, based on her experiences during the war (based on the bo...more
I've already raved about Nella Last's War. By the end of that book I felt I knew Nella and longed to meet her. So this selection from her post-war diaries made me sad, as if I was reading a letter from a friend going through a bad patch. In November 1946:
I stood amongst the women waiting to be served. Well dressed or otherwise, they all had one thing in common -- a kind of look in their eyes and compressed-looking mouths, as if they had closed them tightly at times to keep back sharp words...more
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The title is a bit misleading. As Nella says, "The only peace is that there are no active hostilities, but the corrosion of the war years is eating deeper into civiliisation." While the war years were difficult and frightening for Brits, they were also exciting and drew people together in an effort to make things better. The post-war years had many of the same difficulties of the war, but without the comradery and cheerful "we'll see it through" attitude. Rationing when on fo...more
I read it for research, but enjoyed it as much as a novel. She was a diarist during and after WWII and was a very accessible and perceptive writer. It follow's Nella Last's War. Both are brilliant
Nella Last’s dairy was part of Britain’s Mass Observation Project where many non-fighting English of all different occupations chronicled the everyday events on the home front. World War II is finally. However, the war hasn’t gone away. The shortages and rationing don’t appear to be over anytime soon. Damaged men are returning home to high unemployment. Women, who had a taste of working outside the home, were asked to go back home and return their jobs back to the men.
One of the...more
One of the...more
This is a sad coda to Nella Last's Peace: The Post-War Diaries Of Housewife, 49. Having been so busy and active and useful during the war, Nella found it a hard slog in the post war years.
I am giving this a lower rating not because of that, but because of the poor editing. While the first book allowed readers to hear Nella's voice with few editorial comments, here the editors constantly break into the diaries with comments, and instead of giving us the diaries, they give us quotations and...more
I am giving this a lower rating not because of that, but because of the poor editing. While the first book allowed readers to hear Nella's voice with few editorial comments, here the editors constantly break into the diaries with comments, and instead of giving us the diaries, they give us quotations and...more
Rachel
added it
Gentle reading. It's taken me a long time to read as I'd dip in and out of it every so often, rather than read in one sitting.
Page 208 has beautiful descriptions - Nella at her best.
The book ended rather abruptly. I'm not keen on the choice of last entry.
Like others I'd like more of Nella's diaries. Possibly some of her last years to see how they both fared near the end of their lives.
Page 208 has beautiful descriptions - Nella at her best.
The book ended rather abruptly. I'm not keen on the choice of last entry.
Like others I'd like more of Nella's diaries. Possibly some of her last years to see how they both fared near the end of their lives.
c2008. Echoing a number of reviewers - I certainly found this inspirational and some what comforting. The blurb on the font of the book states a quote from AL Kennedy - whilst sadly I do not know who this particular person is, I wholeheartedly agree with the comment "Tender, intimate, heartbreaking and witty - it grants us the privilege of knowing a stranger's heart". This covers the period my own mother was hitting early married life and it is fascinating to me to be able to expand my...more
Riveting, frank, sad, honest, joyful--all these emotions and more describe the entries that Nella pens in this second volume of her post-war diary. I am really looking forward to her third volume which has not been released yet.
I find myself so drawn into her life and its ups and downs that when this book ended, I felt bereft. She is such a remarkable woman, so strong...yet vulnerable and like all of us mothers, so worried about her family, especially her husband and sons.
I find myself so drawn into her life and its ups and downs that when this book ended, I felt bereft. She is such a remarkable woman, so strong...yet vulnerable and like all of us mothers, so worried about her family, especially her husband and sons.
Rosslyn
added it
A revealing look at Post War Britain. Really helps you to understand what it was like for many trying to adjust to life whilst there were still rations, few jobs and many emotional and physical scars!
Kate Read
is currently reading it
It's a really interesting counter part to Nella Last's war - a fascinating insight into social history in the late 1940s/early 1950s
Interesting diary of a woman who wrote for the Mass Observation project during and after the war.
Fascinating insight into post war England.
I couldnt read this through in one go,I have been reading it on and off since christmas.I really liked the everyday details of what she cooked for dinner and how she managed to provide a meal considering the shortages and rations and without the conveniences we have now of a fridge or freezer.They say the british diet was its healthiest during the war /ration years.I found the story of Jessie the most intresting as we picked upparts of the story through her diary entries.
Nella gives us a frank look at her life at the end of the war in England. Peace did not bring prosperity and life continued to be hard in England. Nella manages well and is proud of it. A plain housewife with so much understanding, warmth and smarts. I like this book but I liked her first book, Nella Last's War better. Life becomes a little less exciting and with age she is losing a bit of her pluck. Still a good read though.
Nella is cranky, enjoys sniping about other women & is openly dissatisfied with her husband - entertaining stuff. She also gives minute details of their meals and the continuing food shortages in post war London.
Fascinating look at the immediate aftermath of WWII and Last doesn't stint on commentary on her private life.
What a fantastic book - if you are looking for an insight as to how the ending of the war affected real people then this is the book. Nella keeps a detailed diary but she has a real talent for writing as well so its a very enjoyable read. cant recommend this book highly enough!
Here's my review.
A bit tedious. Preferred "Housewife 49".
Wendy
is currently reading it
Lucy
marked it as to-read
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Nella Last was a wife and mother who wrote up her day-to-day experience of civilian life in the Second World War as part of the Mass-Observation Archive, which was set up by sociologist Charles Madge and anthropologist Tom Harrisson to record ordinary people's views on contemporary events. She was an intelligent woman, who was stifled by her life and repressive marriage in a provincial place. Fort...more
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