Rationing soon became the norm. Here is a Ministry of food ration book.
© Mirrorpix/ NCJ archive/ NCJ
© Mirrorpix/ Daily Mirror
© Mirrorpix/ Daily Mirror
With most men away fighting, women took over what would have then been regarded as typically ‘male roles’ in society. Organisations like the Women’s Land Army kept the country going in tough times.
591975612 © Getty images/ Mirrorpix / Contributor
01249904 © Mirrorpix/ Derby Telegraph
3203004 © Getty Images/ Three Lions / Stringer
Operation Pied Piper transformed the lives of many young children as they were transported to the relative safety of the countryside.
© Getty Images/ Hulton Deutsch / Contributor
© Getty Images/ Reg Speller / Stringer
Whilst away many children had life-changing adventures. Inner-city children were given the chance to see outside their world of traffic and smog, instead experiencing the joys of the countryside.
The show goes on . . .
A cinema reopens after temporary closure upon the declaration of war.
© Getty Images/ Fred Morley/ Stringer
A group of dancers rehearse their routine equipped with both helmets and gas masks.
© Getty Images/ Hulton Archive/ Stringer
The impact of the Second World War was felt throughout the country. The lives of British people – young and old, rich and poor – were seemingly altered for ever. The day the war ended was a day of jubilation and celebration up and down the country and, just like the day war was declared, would become ingrained in the memory of the nation for generations to come.
Staff nurses in Liverpool celebrate VE Day.
© Mirrorpix/ Liverpool Echo/ Staff
A street party in Manchester. Other events like this were happening up and down the country.
© Mirrorpix/ Kemsley
RECOMMENDED READING
Brown, Mike, Evacuees: Evacuation in Wartime Britain 1939–1945, new edn, History Press, 2005
Gardiner, Juliet, Wartime Britain 1939–1945, Headline, 2005
Horn, Pamela, Behind the Counter: Shop Lives from Market Stall to Supermarket, reprint edn, Amberley Publishing, 2015
Pugh, Martin, We Danced All Night: Britain Between the Wars, Vintage, 2009
Storey, Joyce and Pat Thorne (ed.), The House in South Road, Virago, 2004
Waller, Maureen, London 1945, new edn, John Murray, 2005
Ziegler, Philip, London at War 1939–1945, Pimlico, 2002
SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER 2
Excerpts from Constance Miles’s diaries, taken from Miles, Constance and Partington, S. V. (ed.), Mrs Miles’s Diary: The Wartime Journal of a Housewife on the Home Front, London, Simon & Schuster, 2013
Excerpts from Joan Strange’s diary, taken from Strange, Joan and McCooey, Chris (ed.), Despatches from the Home Front: The War Diaries of Joan Strange, Tunbridge Wells, Jak Books, 1989; new edn 2013
Excerpts from Eva Merrill’s memoir: Merrill, Eva, Looking Back: Reflections of a London Child in the War Years 1939–1945, AuthorHouse Publishing, 2013
Excerpts from Everett, Alan, Corned Beef City: An Autobiography of a Kid from Dagenham, Kindle edition
CHAPTER 3
Excerpts from Katie Owen taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Irene Watts taken from author’s personal interview
CHAPTER 4
Excerpts from Ken and Maureen Hone taken from author’s personal interview Excerpts from Molly Rose taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Vera Barber taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Christine Haig taken from author’s personal interview Excerpts from Jean Ledger taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Eileen Weston taken from author’s personal interview Excerpts from Frank Mee taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Stella Broughton taken from author’s personal interview Excerpts from Philip Gunyon taken from author’s personal correspondence
Excerpts from Merrill, Eva, Looking Back: Reflections of a London Child in the War years 1939–1945, AuthorHouse Publishing, 2013
CHAPTER 6
Excerpts from Betty Nettle taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Maisie Jagger taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Storey, Joyce and Thorne, Pat (ed.), The House in South Road, London, Virago, 2004
Excerpts from Reynolds, Alice, A Penny for the Gas: The personal history of a nonagenarian, Somerset, Railway Cat Creations, 2011
CHAPTER 7
Excerpts from Frank Mee taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Storey, Joyce and Thorne, Pat (ed.), The House in South Road, London, Virago, 2004
CHAPTER 8
Excerpts from Frank Mee taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Merrill, Eva, Looking Back: Reflections of a London Child in the War years 1939 –1945, AuthorHouse Publishing, 2013
Excerpts from Reynolds, Alice, A Penny for the Gas: The personal history of a nonagenarian, Somerset, Railway Cat Creations, 2011
CHAPTER 9
Excerpts from Frank Mee taken from author’s personal interview
Excerpts from Joan Strange’s diary, taken from Strange, Joan and McCooey, Chris (ed.), Despatches from the Home Front: The War Diaries of Joan Strange, Tunbridge Wells, Jak Books, 1989; new edn 2013
Panter-Downes, Mollie, London War Notes, 1971; new edn London, Persephone Books, 2015
OTHER SOURCES
see also Recommended Reading, p.287
de Courcy, Anne, 1939: The Last Season, new edn Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003
Gardiner, Juliet, Memories of Britain Past: The illustrated story of how we lived, worked and played, Reader’s Digest, 2011
Kynaston, David, Austerity Britain 1945–51, reprint edn, Bloomsbury, 2008
Longmate, Norman, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War, new edn, Pimlico, 2002
—, The Home Front: An Anthology of Personal Experience 1938–45, Chatto & Windus, 1981
Miller, Russell: VE Day: The People’s Story, new edn, History Press, 2007
Nicholson, Virginia, Millions Like Us: Women’s Lives During the Second World War, Penguin, 2012
Pearce, Robert, 1930s Britain, Shire Publications, 2010
Smith, May, These Wonderful Rumours!: A Young Schoolteacher’s Wartime Diaries 1939–1945, Virago, 2013
Waller, Maureen, A Family in Wartime: How the Second World War shaped the lives of a generation, Conway, 2012
Yorke, Trevor, The 1930s House Explained, reprint edn, Countryside Books, 2006
Backyard Brighton, Selma Montford; there is also a book, Backyard Brighton: New memories, reflections and photographs by Jacqueline Pollard, published by Brighton Books in 2007
BBC WW2 People’s War online archive (www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/)
Best of British magazine (www.bestofbritishmag.co.uk/) and Yesterday Remembered (https://yesterdayremembered.co.uk/)
www.1900s.org.uk/ ‘Everyday Life, early-mid 20th century, by people who were there’
Daily Telegraph
Derby Telegraph (formerly Derby Evening Telegraph)
The Imperial War Museum, London (www.iwm.org.uk/)
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Archives and Local Studies Centre
Mass Observation Archive, Brighton
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