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Works by Nella Last

Associated Works

The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists (2000) — Contributor, some editions — 550 copies
Great World War II Stories: 50th Anniversary Collection (1989) — Contributor — 29 copies
Housewife, 49 [2006 film] (2006) — Original diaries — 10 copies

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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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Reviews

There are many books out there that give us a perspective of World War II from the point of view of those fighting on the front lines, in the resistance and from Whitehall, but there are very view that show us what living through this war was like from the viewpoint of the civilian at home. In 1937, the Mass Observation Project in England was founded by Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson. They wanted to record the views of ordinary British people, and recruited volunteers to observe British life, and diarists to record a day-to-day account of their lives. These archives now give a unique insight into the lives of British civilians who found themselves going through a period when their country was at war. Nella Last is one of these diarists and, far from giving the reader an uncomfortable feeling of reading something private, it opens up a world that few could have imagined existed during these austere times. The writer is an ordinary small town English housewife, and her diary covers the period of time from the outbreak of war in September 1939 through to August 1945, although she did keep contributing to the project until 1965. Housewife 49, refers to how she headed her first entry; her occupation – Housewife, her age – 49.

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...





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Melline | 14 other reviews | Aug 13, 2022 |
Nella Last was a volunteer to the UK's Mass Observation Project when WWII began. I read the book in which her diary entries from that period are compiled in 2020. This book from her diaries covers the period immediately after the war, August 1945 through Dec 1948.

Before the war Nella had always been a homebody and often ill. During the war she pushed herself to become a volunteer and found she had skills in organizing and managing that she didn't know she had and she was surprised to find she enjoyed working. In this volume the volunteer opportunities are over and Nella is back in her home. The adjustment is difficult for her and other women to make. In addition to feeling like she had lost her purpose, she had every possible hardship to deal with, particularly food. In the first book there were few complaints about her husband but after the war her patience with him grew thin because he expected to be the center of her life. He seems to be having a lot of anxiety which I don't remember from the earlier book and that is also a burden for her. Although her sons both made it through the war she worries about them finding jobs and housing.

One of the ways Nella deals with it all is to read! She often writes of going to the library. She had dreamed of being a writer herself, and of course, she became one with her diaries. In the Afterwards we learn her oldest son will become a bookstore owner and bookbinder in the early 1960s. Her younger son moved to Australia in 1947, another hardship for Nella. As the 1950s grow near and life is not so harsh Nella's mood begins to lift. The next and last book, which I have just ordered, is Nella Last in the 1950s. I love "ordinary" Nella and look forward to finding out what came next. The first book has been filmed as a movie, Housewife, 49. The 49 refers to her age when she started the diaries.
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clue | 3 other reviews | Feb 3, 2022 |
In 1937 the Mass Observation Project in Britain began to archive materials related to everyday life. Nella Last became one of 500 who participated in the writing project, maintaining a diary for 30 years! Her diaries cover three periods: WWII, post-war, and the 1950s.

Nella was 49 in 1939 and lived in Barrow-in-Furness in Lancashire with her husband and had two grown sons. The WWII diary begins on September 3 when she wrote "Well, we know the worst." England was at war and Nella became a faithful recoreder of the wartime life of an average homemaker. She joined the WVS (Women's Volunteer Service) and became very involved in it and the Red Cross. What I liked most about her diary is that she didn't just tell what she did, she recorded her thoughts as well. As the war goes on and Nella shoulders increasing responsibility for the projects she takes part in, we can see her become more independent and confident. She begins to be frank about her marriage and ponders why she hasn't stood up to her husband in the past. Often her thoughts wandered to the future and she speculated there would be many social changes after the war. It will be interesting to read Nelia's other books and see what she thought of those changes when they did indeed take place.… (more)
 
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clue | 14 other reviews | Jan 16, 2021 |
A few weeks ago while flicking through stations on the telly I came across Housewife, 49, based on the diaries of Nella Last during WWII it tells of life on the homefront, and one woman’s story. I really enjoyed the film. It is one of those small films, telling a small story, but an important one. So I decided to read some of Nella Last’s diaries. This collection, edited by Patricia & Robert Malcolmson, collects Last’s diaries during and after the second World War.

Last began writing her diaries for Britain’s Mass-Observation project, which was designed to reveal just what British people thought and did. It was a social project specialising in everyday life and “ordinary” people. You can read more on their website – http://www.massobs.org.uk/. Nella Last wrote her diaries right through the war and through the fifties and sixties. This collection has selections from the 1940s to the 1950s.

And if you are all interested in social history, or ordinary life then you should give it a read. Because it really is a fascinating look at Britain during and after the war. But it also the story of one woman and the battles she fought and struggled with during her life. In many ways it felt like reading a proto-blog. These are Last’s day to day thoughts, not only about the war but also about her own family, friends and neighbours. And those parts are, to me, the most interesting. Nella is very much of her time. She has those biases and prejudices, but she sometimes sees them for what they are and tries to overcome them.

It is also the story of a marriage. Nella’s husband Will suffers a lot from “his nerves”. An anxious man he never wants to go out and socialise, or even have people over, whereas Nella yearns for company. She spends a lot of her time protecting him from anything too exciting, she even makes sure to pick books that don’t feature murder when she collects some library books for him.

Nella very much identifies as a wife and mother, I wonder what she would have been capable of if given the education and freedom of today’s world?
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Fence | Jan 5, 2021 |

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