Nella Last’s War edited by Richard Broad and Suzie Fleming was everything other reviewers had promised it would be: eloquent, engaging, and fantastically detailed, it’s an unusually coherent and introspective diary that paints a vivid picture of one woman’s experiences during the Second World War. For those who are not yet familiar with Last, she was a housewife in Barrow (a shipbuilding town on the Irish Sea) and, more significantly for us, a diarist for the Mass-Observation archive for almost thirty years; in addition to her wartime diaries two other volumes have been published: Nella Last’s Peace and Nella Last in the 1950s. Indeed, it’s difficult to pick up any recent histories of wartime Britain now that do not include at least a few lines from Last! She seems to have become the voice of the average civilian during wartime, which, for a woman who never considered herself to be clever and wasn’t particularly educated, would no doubt have amazed her:
21 November 1943: I wonder how high the pile is of letters and M.O. diaries I’ve written. I bet it would surprise me. I always longed to be clever and write books. I bet I’ve written a few in the shape of letters and endless scribbles!
While I found it very difficult to like Last herself, I was always appreciative of how ably she expressed herself in her diaries and how clearly her thoughts came across. I think I came closest to liking her at the beginning of the war when she was thinking about her younger son Cliff and what the war would mean for him:
6 September 1939: I looked at my own lad sitting with a paper, and noticed he did not turn a page often. It all came back with a rush – the boys who set off so gaily and lightly and did not come back – and I could have screamed aloud. I have laughed to myself sometimes, thinking what a surprise – shock too – my rather spoilt lad was to get, but it’s not funny now. He has such a love of order and beauty, not to say cleanness, and I remember stories they used to tell of the last war, of the dirt and mud in France.
Her reflections on her neighbours and colleagues are also particularly thoughtful, illustrating the personal impacts the war had on families and how disparate and unfair those experiences could be:
19 August 1943: Two women have sat side by side for four years at the Centre, sewing at bandages. One has lost two sons at sea – and now learns her airman son has to be ‘presumed dead.’ Her daughter had to join the WAAF. The other one’s three sons work in the Yard – have good jobs – and the daughter of twenty-eight is ‘reserved’, since she is considered necessary as a secretary to a boss in the Yard. I look round the big room at faces I’ve known and loved for over four years. My heart aches and, even in that small circle, the bravery and courage, the ‘going on’ when only sons have been killed, when letters don’t come, when their boys are taught to fight like savages if they are commandoes – when they are trained and trained and trained, for bodies to endure, and to go and kill other women’s lads, to wipe all the light from other mother’s faces.
For many readers, particularly female ones, the most striking thing about this diary is Last’s growing independence and emancipation from her husband and home. Last worked for the WVS and Red Cross during the war, and, like many housewives, found liberation from housework and wifely duties in her new commitments. Never busier than during the war, Last gained confidence but also contempt for her husband who preferred things as they had been for the first thirty years of their marriage, as he had expected them to always be. Instead, by the time the war ended Last was practically a new woman and her later entries mark quite a different attitude towards her husband than she exhibited at the beginning:
10 May 1945: I love my home dearly, but as a home rather than a house. The latter can make a prison and a penance if a woman makes too much of a fetish of cleaning and polishing. But I will not, cannot, go back to the narrowness of my husband’s ‘I don’t want anyone else’s company but yours – why do you want anyone else?’ I looked at his placid, blank face and marveled at the way he had managed so to dominate me for all our married life, at how, to avoid hurting him, I had tried to keep him in a good mood, when a smacked head would have been the best treatment. His petulant moods only receive indifference now. I know I speak sharply at times, I know I’m ‘not the sweet woman I used to be’ – but then I never was! Rather was I a frayed, battered thing, with nerves kept in control by effort that at times became too much, and ‘nervous breakdowns’ were the result. No one would ever give me one again, no one.
While I may dislike Nella herself, I loved this book and am so pleased to finally know more about the woman who keeps popping up in all my history books. Her views on patriotism and duty while particularly frustrating were absolutely fascinating: I’m so used to reading the words of over-educated intellectuals and statesmen on whom propaganda had little effect that to glimpse its impact on those who truly listened, who followed instructions to the very letter of the law, is both surprising and thought-provoking. Her background is so different to those of my favourite wartime diarists (Virginia Woolf, Harold Nicholson, Charles Ritchie) that it was quite the education to see events from her perspective.
The Captive Reader 
Nella Last’s writing were dramatized in the UK as “Housewife, 49” starring Victoria Wood as Nella, and excellent it was, too. I have long felt I must read the writings of Nella and you have encouraged me if not to order the books right away, at least to add them to my ever-increasing Wish List! Thank you for such an excellent review with appropriate extracts.
I’ve seen “Housewife, 49” at the library a number of times but was never really drawn to it. I’m definitely a book rather than the movie kind of girl!
Oops, Margaret beat me to it! I was going to mention ‘Housewife, 49’ as well. I’ve watched it twice and yes, it made me want to pump my fist in the air when Nella developed a back bone where her husband is concerned.
Reading the diaries, I have to admit that I felt much more sympathetic towards Nella’s husband than I did towards Nella herself.
Your review has given me more reasons to seek this one out. I think the point you brought out about its being from the perspective of one who listened and obeyed the propaganda is what makes it most intriguing . Thanks for the review!
Obviously, it’s a book I think everyone should read so I hope you’re able to find a copy and that you get as much out of it as I did!
I got this for Christmas and I swear I’m not going to let it languish on the to-read shelf! And I have “Housewife, 49” on my Netflix queue but I don’t know if I should watch it first or read the book first. . . tough choice, they both sound fascinating.
Always book first, always! Not that I have any strong feelings on the subject…
Nella is one of my all-time favorite diarists! I think as a middle-aged woman, I get even more out of her reflections than you youngsters do. She seemed to be having some hormonal problems. I could really relate to her worries about her sons. And I really loved her practical, no-nonsense approach to her war work, wanting to do what was most needed and the social hierarchies be damned!
Karen, as you can well imagine, the book is better than the movie, so I recommend reading the book first.
Yes, she does have a few hysterical moments. I was willing to feel sympathetically towards her as a mother until she reemed out her husband for his wishing that their son Cliff had not left his safe position as a P.T. trainer for a more active role that saw him sent overseas. Her disgust with her husband for wanting to keep their son out of harm’s way was too much for me.
I really want to read this, to get a real life view of wartime experiences, rather than upper middle class stiff upper lipped responses.
Why didn’t you like her, can I ask? I can’t see any particular reason why she’d not come across well from the quotes you chose so I’m interested to know why you didn’t find her likeable!
I tried to refrain from colouring my review too much with the passages that upset me most and which made me dislike Nella in hopes of giving other readers the chance to draw their own conclusions. I think we just had very different outlooks and Nella’s reasoning (or lack thereof) and her hysterical reactions to a number of situations was counter to everything I believe and feel. She came across as stupidly, unthinkingly patriotic with no compassion for those who put self-preservation before duty (or, rather, duty as dictated by the government) or for her husband, so upset when their younger son Cliff was leaving to go into action overseas.
And, because you know I can’t leave this alone, all lives and reactions are ‘real’ regardless of class! Very different, yes, but all valid and real.
Oo, I’m with you Claire, on the last point – I don’t like it when people use ‘real’ to mean ‘lower-class’… I know Rachel won’t have meant anything by it, but it’s sad that it’s become something that lots of people say.
However, I still liked Nella Last – even while disagreeing with many of her opinions. I found it impossible to dislike so resilient and intelligent a woman with such low self esteem a lot of the time.
Glad you liked reading her diaries nonetheless!
I’ve heard about this book before, Claire, and I’m itching to read it. It will be interesting to hear the experiences of a housewife and how she dealt with the War. Thanks for the review!
It definitely offers a unique and interesting perspective! I hope you’re able to track down a copy!
Yes, I agree Claire, book first, TV drama second, but in this instance I had not managed to read the book and watched the drama, which was excellent. Perhaps Nella was portrayed in a more sympathetic light on television (played by Victoria Wood) than she appears from her diaries. I really must read this, but the TBR pile is massive, then there’s the supplementary TBR pile (a large oblong log basket) and then there are all those already on the shelves, still unread. People (or should I say non-readers) always ask when they see my books: “Have you read them all?” to which I respond, “There would be no point in having a library if I’d read them all …” That is my excuse for so many TBRs!
Glad to hear you enjoyed this book so much, I have it on a shelf here somewhere 🙂
Oh I’m glad someone else disliked her… I read both this and Nella Last’s Peace, because they WERE very interesting, but I just couldn’t bring myself to like her much. Which is a testament to her honesty and the quality of her writing, I guess, bringing her character out like that – she’s obviously a real woman, not an idealized fabrication put out for the reader – but eek, not a terribly pleasant one, at least to me. I wouldn’t have liked to be one of the people around her, basically!
I too am curious to know what bits you specifically didn’t like from Nella Last. I had Nella Last’s War out of the library earlier this year but didn’t have a chance to finish it before the library demanded it back. From what I read, I was fascinated by her changing attitude toward her husband and her domestic life.
Whew! I guess I’d better rush out and buy it, finally, because it’s been on my wish list at Indigo for ages and I happened to get Housewife 49 from the library a few days ago when planning for some post-op recovery viewing.
So having just watched it again (enjoyed it when it was first televised) and now reading all these comments, I really would like to read the original, although apparently the book is only 5% of the original 2 million words (see Simon’s review last year, comment from one of the editors: http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/2010/02/nella-last.html )
And I need to add a second book to my order of Henrietta Sees It Through to get up to free-delivery level. A nice companion piece, n’est-ce pas?
I haven’t read the book, but I do feel a lot of sympathy for Last from the last quote you included, maybe she is a bit harsh to her husband, but as she says, women were always expected to submit to their husbands and she’s sick of doing that. There still aren’t any easy answers for women, who are still usually expected to do more of the housework and childraising and that kind of thing and can still end up feeling trapped in expectations that they be good and sweet all the time, so it’s good that she’s at least writing honestly about how she feels. My mom had a nervous breakdown when I was a child because of living under those kind of expectations and she still doesn’t live her own life, all she wants is my dad’s approval. (Not that he is at all a bad or controlling person, but she doesn’t know how to think for herself. She wasn’t raised to.)
At least it seems Nella has the strength to try to become her own person (noble as it may be to be a good wife and mother, it can be soul destroying to only care for others and not yourself), even if she’s rough about it (it’s sad that she feels contempt for her husband, but as she says, why should women have to endure placating men all the time? From what I’ve heard about the book, doesn’t her husband have some problems of his own too?). It’s not an easy thing to do, in my own experience. Maybe the writing of the diaries themselves, finding her own voice and having an audience somewhere out there, gave her something. Like I say, I haven’t read the book yet, but maybe I’ll have to look into them now.
As others have queried before me, I’d love to know what it was about Nella you disliked. Anything in particular?
if you haven’t read the book you can hardly comment on it. Nella felt inferior that why most of her remarks about her neighbours are borderline spite. Her son Clifford didn’t hold her in high regard after he left home, called her manipulative. She wrote subjectively for years and what we are seeing now is a psychological study of a woman of her times in Barrow In Furness.
I wonder if Will her husband wrote anything – and what would his opinion of his wife be? That she talked too much!
[…] tastes exactly; it is why I am drawn to Angela Thirkell’s wartime novels, diaries from women like Nella Last and Clara Milburn, and Persephone’s other WWII-era offerings (House-Bound being one excellent […]