I had heard of the Mass Observation scheme which got ordinary people to write down their impressions of everyday life and send them in to a central archive, where they would be kept for future generations.
Well, guess what? We are a future generation and Simon Garfield has been allowed petty unprecedented access to the Mass Observation Archives at the University of Sussex.
For his book, Garfield chose to follow five of the Mass Observation diarists, known only by their pseudonyms.
There was Christopher Tomlin, who lived in Lancashire, he was a seller of writing paper which had the name and address of the correspondent printed on it. Tomlin was a committed Christian, who had a rather overbearing father who knew everything about any topic and seemed unable to understand that he might sometimes be wrong!
There was Pam Ashford who worked as a secretary for a large coal exporting concern in Glasgow. She shared a house with her brother and their mother. Pam saw at first hand the effects that war had on commerce. First communications were cut with their German clients, and then with clients of other European states as the Nazi jackboots crushed free country after free country.
There was Eileen Potter of London, who was a keen tennis player and sword dancer. Eileen spent the war years working very hard as an evacuation officer for the then London County Council. I had never really thought how distressing this job must have been. Eileen's diary entries certainly helped to correct this.
Tilly Rice was a married woman with three children and a baby on the way, and a husband who was forever stuck in London with his Home Office job.
My favourite diary subject was a freelance writer called Maggie Joy Blunt. She sounds like a thoroughly likeable and very modern young woman who would not be out of place in the Britain of today.
The book reveals some very interesting snippets about the war years. Not everyone liked the comedy programmes on the BBC (the comments on Tommy Handley's comedic genius or lack of it are positively libellous, though quite funny in themselves!) the government was suspected of not always telling the truth (no change there, then!) how the Civil Defence system worked (or not, as the case may be) and how people managed to cope on ever-decreasing rations.
Some of the entries are pompous twaddle, some poetic, some thoughtful and some just plain wistful: "But I forget. We are at war… The boys in the village are leaving one by one" that quote is taken from Maggie Joy Blunt.
This is both amusing and very moving and it is one of the best books I have read in years.
The book is published by the Ebury Press at £19.99, though was on half price sale in Waterstones some weeks ago. The ISBN is 0 091 896959.
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