NEW Editorial News Feature:

“Think of desserts while the bombs fall around you: Nella Last and the Mass Observation diarists during World War II"

Bill Pidduck, Publisher

Curiosity got the better of me with Nella Last. I was planning a trip to the Lake District and I could not resist the temptation to make a pilgrimage to Barrow-in-Furness to see where it all happened.

Nella, as you may know, was one of the 300 or so Mass Observation diarists. This was a group of ordinary people who took part in an extraordinary experiment to keep a monthly diary from 1938 onwards. They were encouraged to do so by a group of anthropologists, documentary film makers and surrealist poets, who wanted to capture real life. Life as seen through the daily concerns of apprentices, secretaries, chip shop workers, garage owners, teachers, factory workers – in fact, whoever they could convince to keep a diary. Of course, the war came along and these then became a record not only of ordinary life, but also of life throughout the war.

Most of the diaries have remained unpublished until the appearance of Mass Observation Online, but Nella has become somewhat of a celebrity. Nella Last’s War: A Mother’s Diary, 1939-1945 appeared in 1981 (republished in 2006 as Nella Last’s War: The Second World War Diaries of ‘Housewife 49’) and inspired Victoria Wood’s acclaimed television drama Housewife, 49 (ITV, 2006).

What attracted Victoria Wood was the contrast, again, between the ordinary and the extraordinary: “It wasn’t just about rationing and dried egg and people painting their legs brown to look like stockings. There was a story underneath of a woman in crisis.” For this is a story of a woman’s life transformed through war work; of a woman who constantly worries about her sons during the conflict; of a woman who struggled on when many close friends and neighbours were killed; a woman who found liberation in the midst of tragedy.

I have had the great privilege of reading through the original manuscript diaries, which are much more extensive than the printed versions. This has been in order to create a layer of indexing to make the diaries easier to use. It enables scholars to identify all monthly diary entries with extensive discussion of, for example, anti-Semitism, or evacuation.

Nella Last, like so many of the other diarists, writes vividly about her everyday experiences. Everything from waking up after a disturbed nights sleep; keeping chickens and finding food for the cat; working for the Women’s Voluntary Service or making stuffed toys for sale in aid of Prisoners of War; listening to propaganda on the radio and seeing the latest British and American films at the cinema.

One of my favourite entries is for Sunday, 4 May 1941:

“A night of terror, and there are few windows left in the district – or roof tiles! Land mines, incendiaries and explosives were dropped, and we cowered thankfully under our shelter. … The windows are nearly all out, the metal frames strained, the ceilings down, the walls cracked and the garage roof showing four inches of daylight where it joins the wall. Doors are splintered and off – and there is the dirt from the blast that swept down the chimney. … I’ll never forget my odd sensations, one calm acceptance of ‘the end’, the other a feeling of regret that I’d not opened a tin of fruit salad for tea….”

You can see why Victoria Wood was drawn to the material.

I went to the Cumbria Records Office and Local Studies Library in Barrow to look at local newspapers from this period. Issues of the Barrow News and North Western Evening Mail for April and May 1941 make it clear how serious the bombing was. For instance, on Monday 14 April the North Western Evening Mail reports:

“BOMBS DROPPED ON NORTH-WEST TOWN…
Damage was done by a single bomber which flew over the town early this morning and dropped high-explosive bombs. Two fell on commercial premises, where there was slight damage. Another caused seven men to be injured, but not seriously.

Another bomb demolished six houses in a working-class area, and a commercial hotel was almost completely wrecked, while a church was badly damaged and other property in the area suffered some damage. Rescuers are still working.”

Photographs of Exmouth Street, Barrow, 3 May 1941, and Cloisters Avenue, Barrow, 4 May 1941, show the results of another raid.  Huddled groups of figures stand and look at homes that are now rubble – with fireplaces and broken beds stranded in mid air.

That a town tucked away in the North West of England could take so much damage is a reminder that the Blitz was not limited to London or even to major cities. The first bombs fell there in August 1940, with further raids in September and November. They intensified in March 1941 and in the periods of 14-16 April and 3-10 May 1941 the Barrow Blitz reached its apogee. 83 people were killed, 11,000 houses were damaged and many locals were forced to flee to the surrounding countryside. The primary goal of the bombing was the Vickers dockyard facility, where so many submarines and warships were made, but there was also indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas. This is illustrated in detail in The Barrow Blitz, published by the Dock Museum in 2009, and also in an exhibition at the Dock Museum in Barrow.

The damage can also be seen in the town today if you look carefully. What may appear to be haphazard planning is often the result of new buildings taking the place of bombed out ones. The sign ‘EWS’ (Emergency Water Supply) can still be seen on the side of Marks & Spencer in Buccleuch Street, and many of the shops and civic buildings that Nella knew still survive.

And so at last I came to Nella’s house – still a comfortable suburban house in a quiet neighbourhood with coloured glass in the door window and decorative shrubs in the front garden. It is a perfect symbol of the triumph of ordinary values over adversity.

Bill Pidduck

Publisher