Can I ever resist a volume of wartime diaries? No, not really, which is why I picked up Mrs Milburn’s Diaries: An Englishwoman’s Day-to-Day Reflections, 1939-1945 by Clara Milburn, edited by Peter Donnelly. I had come across it in history book a year or two ago and since then have seen other bloggers reference it, always enthusiastically. Because of that, I really did not expect to be so underwhelmed by this book. And yet I was. I was dreadfully bored before I was even half done and have to admit to skimming the remainder.
Clara is dull. There are moments where we glimpse what Clara’s day-to-day life was like – discussions of gardening, Women’s Institute meetings, dentist appointments, and her husband’s ailments – but there aren’t really enough to build up a strong idea of how this woman spends her days, who her friends are, what she reads…all the cosy, personal details that make diary-reading so delightful. Mostly, she keeps very detailed records on the progress of the war, marking down the number of planes lost or ships sunk with the diligence of a war-mad adolescent boy. Clara has an accountant-like dedication to personally meaningless details. As a record of what the people were being told, I suppose this information is valuable, and it certainly does show how closely some people were following war reports, but it makes for very boring reading. Clara’s editorial comments are basically limited to ‘Hurrah!’ when things go well or ‘death to the Germans!’ when things go poorly.
What does make this book special are Clara’s experiences as the mother of a prisoner of war. For that reason alone, this book is well worth reading. Alan Milburn, Clara’s only child, was captured at Dunkirk in June 1940 and his absence haunts her for the remainder of the war:
One’s mind seems numbed, and the last day or two I go on, keeping on the surface of things as it were, lest I go down and be drowned. Every moment Alan is in my thoughts, every hour I send out my love to him – and wonder and wonder. This queer unreal world, carrying on in some ways here just as before, with this gorgeous weather and summer heat heartening us, and yet most other things so sombre and heartbreaking. (11 June 1940)
The Milburn household (Clara, husband Jack, and devoted servant Kate) delights every time one of Alan’s letters arrives and views all war news in terms of when it might mean Alan could come home. They write him faithfully and keep in close contact with the families whose sons are in the same POW camp, sharing news among themselves any time someone receives a letter. Mostly, they just miss him. Every Christmas is marked with longing, every birthday spent wondering if he’ll be home before the next. I found the details relating to Alan’s time as a POW fascinating, especially learning how he spent his time in the various camps and what sort of things his parents were able to send him through the Red Cross. When Alan does return in May 1945, when the phone call comes to say he was back in England and would be with them soon, I found myself crying. For Clara, the war was now truly over and she stopped the diary only a few days later; with Alan’s return the “bad years of war begin to fade a little” and “the house is one more a real home” (12 May 1945).
As affecting as I found Clara’s devotion to her son, she never really grew on me. I did not feel antagonistic towards her (as I did with the excellent but seemingly rather mean diarist Nella Last) but I never came to respect her. Clara does not seem particularly intelligent and I was annoyed by her fervent patriotism. My lip curls whenever I come across sentimental tosh like ‘God bless Winnie!’ Clara, who never expresses a sentiment not already emblazoned on government propaganda, seems perfectly happy to follow the guidance of others without ever pausing to consider why she agrees with them. If there had been some evidence of this ability to reason, I could almost have respected her. But there wasn’t. I know there is always going to be a large portion of the population who will be happy to be told what to do and think (as long as the person doing the telling is skilful and Churchill certainly was that) but it also follows that such mindless sheep make for dull diarists.
I know how fascinating ordinary lives can be in the hands of gifted diarist – but Clara Milburn did not particularly have that gift. She was a nice woman with a very ordinary life and very ordinary thoughts and a very ordinary way of expressing them. Still, if simply as a glimpse of how families handled the long, uncertain years while family members were in POW camps, this is worth a read.
The Captive Reader 
And I was so enthousiastic and all prepared for a post about how much you loved this, because that would be the perfect excuse to put it on my wishlist. But really, having read your post, I’m not so sure if it’s for me either.
And I was all prepared to be enthusiastic and write a post about how much I loved this, Iris! But then I started reading and…not so much. I did find all the details relating to Alan and POW camps fascinating, mostly because I haven’t really read anything else that goes into detail about the extent of contact people at home had with POW family members in Germany. And Clara’s thoughts about Alan are touching. She loved him so completely.
Have you read ‘Few Eggs and No Oranges’ by Vere Hodgson, Claire? There isn’t all that much about politics contained within the pages, she does enjoy a good broadcast from Churchill, but I really enjoyed it!
No, I still haven’t read it yet, Darlene! I’ve had it on my shelf for a while now and am looking forward to it. I enjoy a good Churchill broadcast too, when it comes to that. My issue with Clara Milburn had more to do with her general willingness to follow, which tends to express itself through patriotic cliches (not to mention her enthusiastic villianizing of the Germans, which I didn’t really touch on here).
Wow, your analysis of Clara Milburn put me off my tea. You seem to equate her fervent patriotism to unintelligence. Hope I’m wrong about that.
I was troubled by Clara’s blind patriotism, certainly. She is perfectly content to do and believe exactly what she is told to do and believe – there’s really no evidence of any attempts at independent reasoning when it comes to these matters. And I didn’t mean to imply that she was unintelligent, just decidedly average.
I hadnt heard of this book before reading your review, but now i have I’m going to add it to my wishlist 🙂 great review.
Glad you enjoyed the review!
I love wartime diaries too! Oh Claire, have you read Joan Wyndham’s books? If not you absolutely have to. The two good ones are Love Lessons and Love Is Blue (in that order). Love Lessons is better, but both of them are really delightful. She’s the exact wartime diarist you never knew your life was a sterile wasteland without. :p
I’ve heard of but haven’t read any of Wyndham’s books yet, Jenny, so I’m excited to hear how enthusiastic you are about them!
[…] 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 example). […]
I loved Mrs Milburn’s Diaries…….and read the book over and over again I just wish there was a follow up book
Mrs E Martin
Am shocked by my strength of feeling on reading your review! I stumbled upon it whilst searching for Clara Millburn. How can anyone not love Nella?!! I haven’t read this one, but the dismissiveness of her for being unintelligent, patriotic etc… For me, the issue is to do with the kind of diary written by ordinary women rather than the elite journal-writers mentioned in comments above – and how we value them (or not, as maybe the case).
She was just a regular person. That is what I love about this book. I read it a couple of times and did not revisit it for many years. Then my son joined the USMC and I read it continually for a year. I guess I just needed it. She just got on with things….I admire that immensely.
I am Mrs Milburn’s great Granddaughter. I guess I must be bias when it come to the diaries as it is all about my grandfather I never met. Alain died in a car accident when my mother Sarah was 5. I decided to see if anyone had ever written about the diaries or read them. I guess I was a little shocked to see such negativity towards Clara. Clara never intended her diaries to be published and never pretended to be anything but herself. Clara was an ordinary British woman worried whether her son would ever return to her (I am glad he did or would never have existed). I think average is under rated and not the point of the publication. I believe she wrote these diaries to show Alain what had happened since he had been away. And in true British style she kept emotion and opinion out.
I have just found out that my uncle still has the letters Alain sent to Clara.
If anyone is interested I might blog about them.
Arabella, I just within the hour finished reading “Mrs. Milburn’s Diaries” and must say that i thoroughly enjoyed the book. Your ancestor left an interesting account of life during a most trying time for the English people. I found it profoundly sad and perhaps unfair that Alan lost his life in a tragic automobile accident after giving up more than five years of life as a prisoner of war. It does seem that the Germans did give better treatment to the British and perhaps American prisoners than they did to the Russian POW’s. I am thankful that I was able to get a glimpse into the life of ordinary people during this time in history and am thankful that Mrs. Milburn made the effort to chronicle the events as they happened.
Exactly, thank you Tom.
If ever you do blog about them, perhaps you would put a link here – I would love to learn more about this period in history (my parents were of Alan’s generation).
I completely disagree with the original reviewer. I’ve just finished the Diaries and I found them absolutely gripping, and very moving. Her life reflected that of so many people who kept going during the day-by-day horrors of the war. Dull? Not at all. I liked the little jokes that cheered her up, and the snippets of ordinary life as well as the particular ones of war-time – treats from under the counter at the grocer’s, for example, and the little quotes from Shakespeare and use of Pepys’ turns of phrase. But it’s a serious picture for us, too, now so far away from it in years, of the actual progress of the war, and the fact of it being fought on so many fronts at once. We can read the history, of course, but nothing brings it to life as experiencing while it is happening and hearing what the BBC said every evening: even if it wasn’t strictly accurate, it _is_ a true report of what people at home were living through. And it’s an accurate enough account for our purposes now. I’m currently editing a war diary of a very different kind and found it helpful to check what happened when. Arabella, you should be very proud of your great grandmother! It’s not easy to be so steadfast in keeping a diary at all, especially one so thorough. It’s particularly touching how she writes about Alan, conveying her feelings but keeping bravely to managing the anxiety; and showing us at the same time how many other families were worrying about and actually losing loved ones, at the front and in air raids. What a reminder of the horrors of war and the courage of ordinary people.
I am very proud of her and wear a picture of her and Alan in a locket around my neck. I am so happy people are still reading her diaries and enjoying her words. Thank you Ruth for your review.
I have read and re-read this book many times, read it aloud to my children, and now am delighted to have my own copy instead of monopolising my local library’s copy!
I find Clara Milburn absolutely inspiring – I admire her energy and focus and how she led such a balanced life even with wartime and many duties, griefs, and distractions.
I wish I could have read the full unedited diaries!
Thank you for your words, I still have to read the unedited diaries. I am so glad people are still reading them 🙂
Arabella, If he was your grandfather, why do you refer to him as Alain instead of Alan?
I never meet him, he died when my mother was 5, also I’m dyslexic 😆
I am reading it for the second time. In fact it’s the sheer ‘ordinary-ness’ of the book that makes it so alluring. I loved reading about how the family got on during the war. It conjured up a time when people looked out for each other, in days when we had proper countryside which wasn’t covered in concrete. I wonder if Burleigh is still there? I know houses have been built in it’s grounds, unfortunately.