Nella Last (1889–1968)
Author of Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of Housewife, 49
About the Author
Works by Nella Last
Associated Works
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists (2000) — Contributor, some editions — 550 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Housewife 49
- Birthdate
- 1889-10-04
- Date of death
- 1968-06-22
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- England
UK - Places of residence
- Barrow-in-Furness, England, UK
- Occupations
- housewife
memoirist
diarist - Organizations
- Women's Voluntary Service
- Short biography
- Nella Last, née Nellie Lord, was a housewife in Barrow-in-Furness, England, at the outbreak of World War II. Her husband was a shopfitter and joiner, and they had two sons. Nella volunteered for the Mass Observation Archive, which had been set up in 1937 to record the views of ordinary British people, and keep a record of everyday life. Nella began keeping a detailed diary -- she headed the first entry Housewife, 49 -- as her town, an important shipbuilding center, became a target for German bombing during the Blitz.
Her own house was among those hit. Nella also worked for the Women's Voluntary Service (WVS) and the Red Cross. Her remarkable account of the lives of ordinary families coping with the war on the home front was compiled into Nella Last's War: A Mother's Diary, 1939-45, and published in 1981; it was republished in 2006 as Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of Housewife 49. A second volume of her diaries, Nella Last's Peace: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife 49, was published in 2008, and a third volume, Nella Last in the 1950s, appeared in October 2010. The wartime diaries were dramatized by ITV in 2006 as Housewife, 49.
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- Popularity
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- Rating
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Nella and her Family lived in Barrow-in-Furness in the North of England, which at the time was a shipbuilding town. This meant that during the Barrow Blitz in April and May of 1941, it became a heavy target for German bombing. This was a period when families were separated, and sometimes coping with the loss of a family member. Cities were being bombed, and housewives such as Nella had to find new ingenious ways to keep their homes together. This remarkable account depicts clearly what it was like for ordinary families living through World War Two.
The diary itself plays two different roles in our understanding of what it was like to live in these times, as it clearly seen that she writes about two distinct areas of her life; Family, friends and the role of women which are the more personal side of the diaries and the other area which reveals Nella’s opinions of public events such as the early war years, and the Barrow Blitz I mentioned above.
Nella's diary is full of stories about her family, her marriage, her volunteer work and the difficulties of day to day life with blackout curtains, rationing and enemy bombers flying overhead. Gas for recreational use was cut off and they couldn't go anywhere except by bus, a task many of us would balk at today. Rationing became severe in the last years of the war, so they tried to grow things like onions and tomatoes that were not available at the grocery store they were registered with, and Nella actually tore up their lawn to keep hens so they would have more than the 1 egg per week that rationing would allow.
Air raids sirens were a nightly occurrence meaning the Family, at times, slept in their clothes so they could get to their shelter quickly if need be and sometimes they even went to bed in the shelter. Reading this diary brought back to mind when my Grandma would tell me about living in Leeds, Yorkshire during the war; the air raids, trying to raise three young children while her Husband was away and, when I asked her how she managed she would tell me it was their way of making sure the Germans didn’t win on the home front, they picked themselves up and kept on going.
The diary isn't all just hardship and grief, however, there are funny things such as happen in normal day to day life and Nella is very adept in conveying how much the value of laughter was cherished during these times. Something that will strike most readers of the diary is how the war and everyday life bled into each other as Nella writes about an air raid and marmalade in the same entry without a change in direction. The reader also sees how Nella grows from being the stereotypical Housewife of the day to being her own woman, something neither her Husband or sons were very keen on.
Apart from being an excellent historical record of the time, this diary serves to show us just how reliant on technology with have become as a society. We have moved away from the self-reliance needed to get us through hard times, and lost our compassion for others in need. It made me wonder how many people that read the diary would be able to successful grow their own food and cope with the constant stress and tension the nightly bombings brought with them.
I highly recommend not only Nella Last's War to everyone, but also the remaining two books of her diaries. Alone this is a learning experience, and a possible eye-opener for the more isolated of us out there but when combined with the other two books it becomes something everyone should read, and hopefully learn from.
Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2014/09/12/review-nella-lasts-war-the-second-world-wa...
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