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33rd out of 130 books
—
64 voters
Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of Housewife, 49
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" pro...more
Paperback, 312 pages
Published
2006
by Profile Books
(first published 1981)
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Most of us very much enjoyed this book. There were many dimensions to it, and different dimensions appealed particularly to different people.
One was that of her relationship with her husband. It is a remarkable record of a woman living in close proximity with a husband for whom she felt, if you believe her, nothing other than resentment. The ebb and flow of their daily exchanges is carefully charted, and her relief at being able to sleep in a separate room. It is funny, sad and very honest. Acco...more
One was that of her relationship with her husband. It is a remarkable record of a woman living in close proximity with a husband for whom she felt, if you believe her, nothing other than resentment. The ebb and flow of their daily exchanges is carefully charted, and her relief at being able to sleep in a separate room. It is funny, sad and very honest. Acco...more
From the moment I chuckled at her sarcasm over a neighbor's piety: "Cannot help thinking if God wanted to do that (strike Hitler dead)he would not have waited till Mrs Helm asked him to do so." I knew that Nella Last was someone I'd like to have known in real life. Her diaries bring you the picture of a REAL person living through WWII. Her courage despite what were clearly pre-war struggles with depression and marriage woes on top of everything the war brought to her doorstep is amazing and insp...more
A lot of good reviews for this book but I'm afraid I can't add to them. Whilst it provides a detailed account of one families war, accurately reflecting the reality of the time rather than the histrionics and heroics of news reel footage, it was just too dull for me to actually enjoy. A worthy read but one for historians rather than those reading for enjoyment in my view.
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I was very interested in the description of the book by Victoria Wood, which indicated it was about seeing the war (WW 2) from the perspective of the domestic difficulties, chilly church halls...not the war of the newsreels. It was indeed written from the viewpoint of a housewife in Barrow-in Furness, England. She was Housewife 49 who wrote of the war years in her diary and submitted it to The Mass-Observation Archive, Special Collections at the University of Sussex Library, Brighton. I share th...more
This book is amazing. In 1939 England, just before the outbreak of WW2, a 49-year-old housewife from a shipbuilding town on the northwest coast, joined something new called the Mass Observation Project. Five hundred volunteers were selected from all over England to write daily journal entries and send them in every week. The goal was to capture a written record of "the voice of the people" of modern times. The volunteers were asked to write of their daily activities, thoughts, and feelings, as w...more
I loved this book, and Nella. It's the wartime Mass Observation diaries of Nella Last, "Housewife, 49" of Barrow-in-Furness. I've read other similar diaries, most notably the ones in Our Hidden Lives, and they are interesting, but none has captivated me as this book did.
She starts out cautiously but is soon using the diaries as a safety valve to express her frustrations with life. She writes beautifully and naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as the war progresses. At t...more
She starts out cautiously but is soon using the diaries as a safety valve to express her frustrations with life. She writes beautifully and naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as the war progresses. At t...more
British authorities promoted writing "observation" diaries during the late 1930's and '40s, by ordinary citizens. Nella Last, a housewife living near a shipyard north of Liverpool, nearing age 50 when her diary started in 1939, writes revealingly from the heart. She describes her emotions and those she observes in other people, the personality changes, the strategies of housewives faced with shortages of everything and, early in the war, with bombing raids. She presents a cheery face to the worl...more
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Nella Last’s War: Housewife 49, by Nella Last. A.
This was recorded by BBCw and purchased through Audible. During and after the second world war, people were asked to keep diaries of their experiences through the war. Nella Last’s was one of the best. She began her journal in 1939 and kept it for 30 years. Only the war years were reproduced in this book. In 1939 when the war began, Nella was a housewife who spent her time at home making a home for her husband and two sons. But her two sons were n...more
This was recorded by BBCw and purchased through Audible. During and after the second world war, people were asked to keep diaries of their experiences through the war. Nella Last’s was one of the best. She began her journal in 1939 and kept it for 30 years. Only the war years were reproduced in this book. In 1939 when the war began, Nella was a housewife who spent her time at home making a home for her husband and two sons. But her two sons were n...more
I enjoyed reading Nella Last's War...although I was surprised to find not quite as much as Nella Last's Peace. When I read the other book first some of the things it felt a bit frustrating not to know seemed likely to be answered in this - and they weren't. I wanted to know so much more about Nella's upbringing, her previous illnesses and childrearing experience and her courtship and early days of marriage with 'my husband' - the man with no name. The gap in this book towards the end of the war...more
I don't know why I love memoirs so much. It doesn't seem quite right that I should get so much enjoyment out of reading other people's diaries. I don't think I'll pursue that line of thought any further though because, well, just because. This is a diary and I loved it. And it turns out, she had a talent for writing, one more reason why you'll enjoy reading it.
It is the diary of an ordinary housewife, Nella Last, in a small town in England, and it covers the time period between September 1939 an...more
It is the diary of an ordinary housewife, Nella Last, in a small town in England, and it covers the time period between September 1939 an...more
I found this book absolutely fascinating. I happened to see the movie based on it ("Housewife, 49") first, since my local library had that and had to wait a while on the book, and the book was much better (as is so often the case). For whatever reason I'm quite interested in what it was like for people living on the Home Front in WWII England--I've read fiction set then, but after seeing "1940s House" I really wanted to track down real accounts of that time. This diary, kept by Nella Last throug...more
“In September 1939, Nella Last, a middle-aged housewife (with two grown sons) living in Barrow-in Furness (England), began a diary for Mass-Observation that she continued to write avidly for nearly thirty years.”
Nella Last wrote more than two million words about life in England between 1939 and 1945, documenting daily life in a ship yard town Editors Richard Broad and Suzie Fleming edited that extensive collection into a two-hundred ninety-eight page book simply titled Nella Last’s War. The entr...more
Nella Last wrote more than two million words about life in England between 1939 and 1945, documenting daily life in a ship yard town Editors Richard Broad and Suzie Fleming edited that extensive collection into a two-hundred ninety-eight page book simply titled Nella Last’s War. The entr...more
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...more
Nella Last was Housewife 49 of the Mass observation project. Her diaries take us from the start of the war to VJ day. It is interesting to mark the changes in Nella as she becomes more involved with war work and less with housekeeping. She shares her thoughts on the war, worries about her sons, costs of clothing and food, how she makes her money stretch, and opinions of her changing marriage. Sometimes it is hard to believe this was written during the war because many of her, or her friend’s, ob...more
Nella Last contributed prolifically to the "Mass Observation" project in Britain during World War II, with diary entries several times a week during that period. They chronicle her work as an assistant in a Canteen and a Red Cross Shop, as well as the Women's Centre, her home life, her relationship with her family and neighbors in the town of Barrow-in-Furness, near Coniston Lake in the North of England. Barrow was bombed during the German air raids, so we hear about the stuffy blackout curtains...more
I really liked this diary (it's real, only slightly edited), but know that to enjoy it you would have to be a fan of 1. non-fiction, 2. WW II history, and 3. British rhythms and life. It's long and reads precisely like you would expect a 5-year diary to read, meaning that characters come in and out, stories aren't always finished. But, if you like all the stuff I mentioned and aren't expecting a fast-paced novel, you'll be rewarded with a glimpse into the life of a normal, insightful, descriptiv...more
I had never heard of Nella Last until I watched the tv film "Housewife 49" based on her diaries.
No doubt many reading this will have also watched it at home. A woman whose war made her a person not just a wife and mother. Her new found confidence changed her as war did for so many women who became more than just a husband's unpaid housemaid.
There is a lot more in the diaries than the parts used in the tv film.
For instance her doctor visited and had seen her care looking after animals or small ch...more
No doubt many reading this will have also watched it at home. A woman whose war made her a person not just a wife and mother. Her new found confidence changed her as war did for so many women who became more than just a husband's unpaid housemaid.
There is a lot more in the diaries than the parts used in the tv film.
For instance her doctor visited and had seen her care looking after animals or small ch...more
I ended the year on a high note - - I enjoyed this so much that it bumped a book out of my "top ten read in 2011". In England during WWII, average citizens kept diaries as part of a Mass Observation project to record their every day lives during the war. In some ways, nothing very much happens and yet so much happens. Nella is a 50 year old housewife who has focused her entire life around her husband and two sons. The war introduces a new focus for Nella who starts taking charge at the local can...more
I read this book a couple of years ago and was really impressed with it, that someone could keep such a detailed diary all throught the war under difficult conditions. This was just an ordinary housewife keeping a day to day diary of all daily events. The thing that i liked was it told the effect of the 2nd world war on the ordinary person, and it was not set in London, everyone knows about the blitz but other places in England suffered too, and there was a lot of industry in the North so it bec...more
Nella Last was a volunteer in the Mass Observation, which began in Britain in 1937 and went through the early 1950's. Ordinary people were asked to keep diaries of their everyday lives, to "create an anthropology of ourselves." Actually, the Mass Observation Project was revived in 1981, although personally, I can't imagine I'd find the Thatcher years all that exciting to read about.
Nella's diary entries were some of the best of the M.O., being frequent, interesting, and honest. This was great ba...more
Nella's diary entries were some of the best of the M.O., being frequent, interesting, and honest. This was great ba...more
Nella Last took part in the Mass Observation Project during World War II, a groundbreaking program in which British people were asked to maintain diaries discussing their daily experiences. She wrote diligently for more than thirty eventful years. Nella Last's War concentrates on 1939-1945 and in doing so focuses on a woman blossoming, starting at the age of 49, into an independent, free-thinking spirit.
The War offered Nella a chance to do useful work that made a difference in the world; the clo...more
The War offered Nella a chance to do useful work that made a difference in the world; the clo...more
Read this after seeing the movie based on the book. This isn't a book I read cover to cover, but that I dip into now and again, which works well for the way the author wrote this book: as a daily journal. What is consistent is Nella Last's likableness. Reading her account of a homemaker's life in England during World War II is like sitting down with a companionable friend for a chat - just remember to brew yourself a cup of tea as well.
This book was part of the Mass-Observation project in England, where people -- not writers, just regular, normal, not-necessarily-neurotic people -- were asked to keep daily diaries. Nella Last's is remarkably fascinating. She's a terrific writer, but more to the point, the window into the life of a housewife in the thick of the war, the bombings, the rationing, is incredibly interesting. And the food! Gah. Horrible.
An amazing book! Rush out and get a copy. Nella's observations on the war, her thoughts on the future, her children, and her marriage are endlessly enlightening. Nella's voice is practical - yet will suddenly takes a flight into poetry. The book is all the greater because she is so relentlessly self-aware. Can't wait to get my hands on a copy of _Nella Last's Peace_!
Nella Last's diary is more domestic than war; although she writes of the bombings and the constant fear, her underlying theme is the effect war has on daily routines and how housewives cope. She feeds her husband (and sons, when home) as well as she can through rationing, she saves her petrol for trips to the Lake District, she mends and knits, and cheers up the W.V.S. and Red Cross while pretending she's not scared.
Thoroughly recommended, with the reminder that it is a domestic journal, not a...more
Thoroughly recommended, with the reminder that it is a domestic journal, not a...more
I really "enjoyed" this book and have so much respect for the author. She made so much for so little and remained strong during these times of the war. She is inspiring in how she kept her head up and became so much stronger as a person throughout the writing of her diary. It's a great portrait of everyday life during this time in England.
Mrs. Last's diaries are so real and heart-felt. Her accounts of life in her town in England during WWII were fascinating. It is so refreshing to read from the point of view of a "little person." She commented that if she were not a wife and mother, she would want to be a writer. She was a writer. I highly recommend this book.
In 1939, housewife and mother Nella Last began a diary whose entries, in their regularity, length, and quality, have created a record of WWII. This is a moving testimony, that, covering sex, death, and fear of invasion, provides a new, unglamorized female perspective on the war years.
LOVE this book. The actual diaries of an English housewife, culled from a social project carried out during WWII. Mundane on the surface, but so much depth and such an intimate picture of what life was like for an average Brit in those dark years. Highly recommend.
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| The Perks of Bein...: 'Nella Last's War' Discussion Thread (May/June 2012) | 8 | 15 | May 21, 2012 01:19am |
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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“If you love a person in the real sense, you want them to be happy, not take them like butter and spread them thinly over your own bread, to make it more palatable for yourself.”
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May 24, 2012 07:08am