Nella Last's War

'Next to being a mother, I'd have loved to write books...' Nella Last, Oct 8, 1939 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 the period in which she turned 50, saw her children leave home, and reviewed her life and her marriage - which she eventually compares to slavery. Her growing confidence as a result of her war work makes this a moving (though often comic) testimony, which, covering sex, death and fear of invasion, provides a new, unglamorised, female perspective on the war years.

Richard Broad is a retired TV director and producer now living in Ireland. He made over ninety documentaries mostly on historical, social and environmental subjects. He won an Emmy for Palestine, a series about British rule there between 1917 and 1948, and his seven-part series A People's War about the Home Front in the Second World War used the Mass-Observation Archive extensively, including material from the Nella Last diaries. Suzie Fleming is a mother of two and a historian of the women's movement. Her other published work includes Eleanor Rathbone, 'Spokeswoman for a Movement', which introduced the re-publication of Rathbone's classic The Disinherited Family in 1986, and traced the contribution of mothers to the creation of the welfare state.