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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.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49504759644433,"sku":"GOR001140302","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49634010038545,"sku":"GOR001189758","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49657426346257,"sku":"CIN1846680743G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49735880048913,"sku":"NGR9781846680748","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49854515314961,"sku":"GOR011084764","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50001733714193,"sku":"CIN1846680743A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50338839462161,"sku":"CIN1846680743VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846680743.jpg?v=1763120885"},{"product_id":"free-spirited-woman-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780900952555","title":"A Free-Spirited Woman","description":"Intimate insights into the life of a woman in 1930s London, both private and public.  Gladys Langford (born in 1890) was a free spirit, an aspiring writer (though not published in her lifetime), an inveterate attender of plays, concerts, and films, and an astute and sometimes acerbic observer of everyday life in 1930s London. Married in 1913 (the marriage was later annulled), and chained as she saw it to schoolteaching for most of her adult life, Gladys's days were sometimes unhappy but also full of incident, and featured a relationship with a longstanding but married lover, who was often on her mind.  Gladys's writing is crisp, colourful, and often biting. Her diary, from 1936 to 1940, while frequently introspective and full of self-doubts, is also a vivid portrait of social life. She writes of her quirky friends, her family and straightened family background, her schoolboys in Hoxton, and her numerous Jewish acquaintances. She also has much to say about London's public world - the behaviour of theatre audiences, street entertainers, anti-Semitic outbursts, the roller-coaster moods of people living through 1939, and fears of evacuation with the outbreak of war.    Patricia and Robert Malcolmson are social historians with a special interest in Mass Observation, women in World War Two, and English diaries written between the 1930s and the 1950s.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49533012476177,"sku":"GOR008042917","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50429665673489,"sku":"GOR013947826","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0900952555.jpg?v=1751139526"},{"product_id":"nella-last-in-the-1950s-book-patricia-malcolmson-9781846683503","title":"Nella Last in the 1950s","description":"'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 (with a follow-up under discussion).    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, she 'will come to be seen as one of the major twentieth century English diarists.'","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49535509889297,"sku":"GOR002453675","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49575441793297,"sku":"GOR002333511","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49657450561809,"sku":"CIN1846683505A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49727425675537,"sku":"CIN1846683505G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50558864916753,"sku":"CIN1846683505VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50882435416337,"sku":"GOR004595956","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50951734034705,"sku":"GOR009019812","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846683505.jpg?v=1751122511"},{"product_id":"diaries-of-nella-last-book-patricia-malcolmson-9781846685460","title":"The Diaries of Nella Last","description":"'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, she 'will come to be seen as one of the major twentieth century English diarists.'","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49541215486225,"sku":"GOR004415451","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49543610106129,"sku":"GOR006065537","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49735645626641,"sku":"NGR9781846685460","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49790930845969,"sku":"CIN184668546XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50236161458449,"sku":"GOR008441183","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50736489136401,"sku":"GOR007113155","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50960332259601,"sku":"CIN184668546XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/184668546X.jpg?v=1759226712"},{"product_id":"nurse-s-war-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780008519155","title":"A Nurse's War","description":"The remarkable wartime diary of nurse Kathleen Johnstone                                     Warm, chatty and endlessly absorbing, this delightful diary brims with intelligence and humour. Wendy Moore, author of Endell Street: The Women Who Ran Britains Trailblazing Military Hospital","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49570829271313,"sku":"GOR012473146","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49741419708689,"sku":"NGR9780008519155","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49789283139857,"sku":"GOR012830703","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49935964832017,"sku":"GOR012863286","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52414354325777,"sku":"NLS9780008519155","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52707377152273,"sku":"GOR012539496","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0008519153.jpg?v=1758968654"},{"product_id":"voices-from-wartime-leeds-1939-1940-three-mass-observation-diarists-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780900741784","title":"Voices from Wartime Leeds 1939-1940: Three Mass Observation Diarists","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49742483751185,"sku":"NGR9780900741784","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0900741783.jpg?v=1751364225"},{"product_id":"woman-in-wartime-london-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780900952418","title":"A Woman in Wartime London","description":"Kathleen Tipper's diary, kept for Mass-Observation from July 1941 till peace in 1945 and beyond, offers a unique personal insight into one young woman's war.  Kathleen Tipper was just twenty years old in September 1939.   Her parents had met while making munitions in the Woolwich Arsenal during the Great War and Kathleen lived with them and her younger brother and sister at the family'scouncil house in Appleton Road. Eltham.   Grammar-school educated, she worked as a clerk for a shipping company near the Strand.  Like so many of the young women around her she was poised to take advantage of the new opportunities for work and leisure that London in the thirties offered as never before.   But Kathleen's life - indeed, the lives of all Londoners -  would change for ever in the six years after declaration of war on 3 September.   This was a moment of quite extraordinary drama.   And Kathleen's diary, kept for Mass-Observation from July 1941 till peace in 1945 and beyond, offers a unique personal insight into one young woman's war.   We keep her company through the daily comings and goings of family, friends, work and relaxation - all played out against a backdrop of cataclysmic events brought home through cinema, radio and the daily press.   We travel on buses and trains and listen tothe conversations going on about her.  We hear the opinions of 'blonde glamour girls', of disgruntled civil servants, of the men and women working the barrage balloons that sway like tipsy bluebottles in the London sky.   We witness the effect on her of newsreels and Information Ministry films.   We hear her wishing she'd been born a boy so that she could share more fully in the risks and excitements of warfare at the front.   We see her disillusionment with people in 'positions of authority', especially those there by virtue of class inheritance, and she helps us understand better some of the forces that shaped Labour's victory in 1945.   It is, perhaps, the ordinariness of this extraordinary time in London's history that comes through most strongly from this fascinating document.   Keeping hold of ordinary things was the best way to make sense of a world gone mad.   Kathleen Tipper lays bare thesefibres of endurance in the greatest crisis to face London and the Londoner in modern times.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49761828372753,"sku":"GOR008336845","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50907142062353,"sku":"GOR014118114","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0900952415.jpg?v=1750787243"},{"product_id":"english-laundresses-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780252012938","title":"English Laundresses","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50164708835601,"sku":"GOR013877707","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52508054323473,"sku":"GOR014544346","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52647410696465,"sku":"GOR011516518","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0252012933.jpg?v=1751356365"},{"product_id":"vicar-s-wife-in-oxford-1938-1943-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780902509740","title":"A Vicar's Wife in Oxford, 1938-1943","description":"The diary of a clerical wife during the Second World War provides fascinating insights into life at the time.  War had an impact on even genteel civilians in unraided cities like Oxford (though safety was never assured), among them Madge Martin (born 1899), wife of the vicar of St Michael at the North Gate, Oxford. Her pre-war life, full of travel, theatre visits, walks, books and films, was jolted into very different realities: she found herself undertaking more housework (by 1943 she had lost both her maids), volunteering with the Red Cross, and housing her two sisters' families, who self-evacuated at different times to Madge's home to escape London's air raids.    Her private diary, engagingly and accessibly written, discloses much about her thoughts and feelings and social relations; some tribulations (she endured serious and frequent headaches); and her ambivalences concerning her role as a parson's wife. It shows both the persistence of comfortable, established lifestyles and necessary adaptations to theconstraints of existing in wartime. It is presented here with notes and introduction.    PATRICIA and ROBERT MALCOLMSON are social historians with a special interest in Mass Observation, women in World War Two, and Englishdiaries written between the 1930s and the 1950s.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50206624121105,"sku":"GOR009657259","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50907141636369,"sku":"GOR013097383","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53104297378065,"sku":"GOR014742386","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0902509748.jpg?v=1751397142"},{"product_id":"soldier-in-bedfordshire-1941-1942-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780851550749","title":"A Soldier in Bedfordshire, 1941-1942","description":"Denis Argent, a professional journalist, joined the British Army in 1940 at the age of 23.  He was already writing for Mass Observation, the innovative research organisation founded in 1937. During most of his first two years in uniform, when he was billeted in Bedford and Luton, he kept a remarkably detailed and probing diary.  He wrote of street life and other aspects of the Home Front in Luton and Bedford, where the BBC's Symphony Orchestra had relocated shortly before he arrived; daily military routine; bomb disposal; transport; women, sex and leisure; his political views and cultural interests (he loved music and was widely read); the crucial importance of leave to see his girlfriend; and his fellow conscientious objectors - he was in the Non-Combatant Corps, though he later chose to take up arms. Denis Argent had a keen and observant reporter's eye.  He was also highly attuned to the modernist intellectual culture of his time.   His is a wartime diary that is perceptive, colourful, wide-ranging, sometimes amusing, and very well written.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50636699271441,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50636700451089,"sku":"GOR001734583","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0851550746.jpg?v=1750704679"},{"product_id":"bedford-diary-of-leah-aynsley-1943-1946-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780851550831","title":"The Bedford Diary of Leah Aynsley, 1943-1946","description":"The Bedford Diary of Leah Aynsley, 1943-1946, provides a fascinating insight into the daily life of a working class woman during the Second World War.  Edited by Patricia and Robert Malcolmson, The Bedford Diary of Leah Aynsley, 1943-1946, provides a fascinating insight into the daily life of a working class woman during the Second World War. Leah hoped that her diary, which shegave as a bequest to Bedfordshire Archives Service, would: 'often be useful to settle arguments as to what happened on such and such occasions.' She also thought that: 'being written by a working-class person among whom I suspectnot many will keep such diaries . [it] may be interesting in future centuries'.   Leah moved with her parents and two brothers to live in Queens Park, Bedford, in 1921 while in her twentieth year. During the war years she worked for W. H. Allen \u0026amp; Sons Engineering Works and the diary includes her thoughts on her job there and the work that was undertaken by the firm. The diary also details her day to day activities, generally confined to cycling distance of her home. But she had a busy and active life - working on her allotment in Bromham, attending BBC concerts in the Corn Exchange as well as going to local lectures and folk dances. Throughout the diary Leah comments on aspects of war-time Bedford including the influx of American airmen, rationing, Home Guard duties, bombing raids, air-raid warnings and preparations for invasion. Her style - understated, measured, factual, domestic but engaging - isno better captured than in her entry on Victory Day: 'V DAY. Well, the day is nearly over now. Very quiet around here. I have not heard any victory bells. The street has blossomed out into flags, bunting and fairy lights. The local shops were open - even the fish shop - and the baker called as usual ... Churchill broadcast at 3 p.m. ... A very pleasant day in May.'","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50880311361809,"sku":"GOR010711263","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50907141767441,"sku":"GOR014118113","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53251979870481,"sku":"GOR014833607","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0851550835.jpg?v=1750704680"},{"product_id":"dorset-in-wartime-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780900339158","title":"Dorset in Wartime","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50907142783249,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50907143504145,"sku":"GOR005994792","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52637629284625,"sku":"GOR009641976","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0900339152.jpg?v=1750787185"},{"product_id":"parson-in-wartime-book-patricia-malcolmson-9781910653036","title":"A Parson in Wartime","description":"Arthur Hopkins arrived in the Lincolnshire town of Boston in November 1942 to take up the post of Vicar of St Thomas's Church in the working-class parish of Skirbeck Quarter. He was already writing almost daily instalments of a diary for the social research organisation, Mass Observation. Generously conceived, it is written almost as if it were a series of letters to a friend abroad, providing descriptions and comments on everyday life in wartime. Little was beneath his notice. This was a man who had attended university with the King after the Great War and had prominent relations, but was also egalitarian in his leanings and sympathetic to the common people. His is the diary ofa thoughtful and perceptive individual who had a realistic sense of himself, his society, and the fragility of life; the engagingly readable entries reveal fascinating details of wartime Lincolnshire and the life of a busy parishpriest. The diary is edited here with introduction and notes. Patricia and Robert Malcolmson are social historians with a special interest in English diaries written between the 1930s and 1950s. They have edited for publication over a dozen of these diaries.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51395877798161,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51395877962001,"sku":"GOR009194258","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1910653039.jpg?v=1751441700"},{"product_id":"me-and-my-hair-book-patricia-malcolmson-9780957112896","title":"Me and My Hair","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51480855413009,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51480855544081,"sku":"GOR006065899","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0957112890.jpg?v=1750788476"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-patricia-malcolmson.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}