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Introduction

In September 1939 Nella Last began a diary that was to continue for nearly 30 years. She was a volunteer with the Mass Observation Archive, which was set up in 1937 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's older son, Arthur, in 1940  © Nella Last was a housewife, married to a shop-fitter and joiner. Their younger son, Cliff, was in the Army and the older son, Arthur, was a tax inspector and therefore exempted from conscription. Both were now living away from home. The Lasts lived in Barrow-in-Furness - a shipbuilding town. During the Blitz, it became a 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 two sets of extracts published on this site have been divided into those concerning Nella's more personal life, as it was affected by the war (part one), and those concerning more public events (part two - for link see 'Related Links' column, right).

Family, friends, woman's role

A Last family friend - Jack Gorst  © In these extracts, Nella writes of moments in her family life during the war. She reveals her feelings towards her husband, her sons, her past life and her anger at the limitations that society imposed on women at this time.

Monday 25 September 1939: I've got a lot to be thankful for. Even the fact - which often used to stifle me - that my husband never went anywhere alone or let me go anywhere without him, has settled into a feeling of content.

Sunday 8 October 1939: Next to being a mother, I'd have loved to write books - that is if I had the brains and the time. I love to 'create' but turned to my home and cooking and find a lot of pleasure in making cakes etc. He [her son Cliff] seems to have got the idea that I'll go into pants! Funny how my menfolk hate women in pants. I do myself, but if necessary for work, would wear them.

Wednesday 15 January 1941: I gave Cliff a very big helping as he had to catch the train back [to his base] after lunch. He said 'If you ever have to work for a living, Mom, come and cook for the Army'. I said 'What do you mean - work for my living. I guess a married woman who brings up a family and makes a home, is working jolly hard for her living. And don't you ever forget it. And don't get the lordly male attitude that thinking wives are pets - and kept pets at that.'

Sunday 27 April 1941: Jack Gorst, a family friend, came home on leave.

I see a big change in him and not for the better.

Nella Last was surprised by Jack Gorst's dislike of Churchill.

He says, 'He is not as popular as all that, and he has a good press agent' and he says that Churchill was badly received by the people of Bristol.

Nella listened to the Churchill broadcast.

I got no inspiration - no little banner to carry. More & more do I think that it is the end of the world, the Old World anyway. If anything is left, it will be America and Australia where life will be preserved in any form.

Family row

Nella and her younger son, Cliff  © Saturday 24 January 1942: Nella had a huge row with her husband, over whether their son Cliff should volunteer for overseas service. Her husband wants him to remain at home in a 'safe' job, whilst Nella wants him to fulfil himself. Her anger seems to be related to her exasperation at her husband's lack of imagination and resistance to new ideas.

In the early years of their marriage, times were hard and her husband's family was of little help. Nella was still angry at their patronising and arrogant behaviour towards her in those times.

He went on and on about Cliff being a fool and if he had remained a PT instructor, he might never have had to go. Nella replied Would you cling so tightly to Cliff that you would kill all that was fine in him as long as he stayed in England. What about honour and duty. He said 'You always did talk daft, I want my boy to be safe'.

Nella replied angrily

I thanked God I was a fool... and had tried to teach my lads to be fools and if he had been a bit more of a fool, he would have been more of a man. His boy, indeed. He has never taught, cared for, tried to understand either of them - or ever thinks of writing to them - and is not always interested enough in their letters to listen if I read them. Cliff must live, and not shun Life and always be afraid of things and ideas.

Cliff told his parents that he had let it be known that he was willing to go abroad. He was taken aback by his father's face with tear-filled eyes, crying 'I want you to be safe'.

Nella said

Safe for what? Till his soul dies in his body... and bitter inward thoughts turn his blood sour and torment him.

Death, freedom and marriage

Cliff Last, his father, and family friend Jack Gorst  © Wednesday 21 March 1942: Cliff's best friend, George, was killed. On Cliff's return home, Nella Last quotes his words.

'I never knew death before, that dreadful nevermore feeling. So much has gone. I cannot linger around a bookshop. I never cared for anyone as much as George. We belonged. Our friendship was one of mutual likes and dislikes.'

Nella Last writes:

So dreadful to see distress one cannot do anything to help or comfort. Words are hollow and brittle things. I could only hold him [Cliff] closely. So much passing that was beautiful and good

Sunday 12 April 1942: When I was a girl, it was considered very odd not to be married at 21 or 22, and my mother said 17 or 18 was the age most girls thought of marriage when she was young. Looking round friends and acquaintance's boys and girls, sons of 25 to 30 with no thought of marriage and girls who are going off to the Services and saying 'Oh we will wait till after the War to get married'.

I feel this conscription of women will be a backward step, for it is taking the best, most formative years from a girl's life and giving her a taste of freedom that many crave for. Will they settle later to homes and children?

Sunday 17 May 1942: My wedding anniversary - 31 years ago. I was married in blue but as no make-up was worn then by a respectable girl, it robbed me of what colour I had. I can remember my huge dark eyes, blazing in my poor white face and my attempts to rub and pinch a bit of colour into my cheeks. My mother thought I was lovely, my husband thought I looked white and afraid.

Cliff, Arthur - and home thoughts

Wednesday 29 July 1942: Nella learned in a letter from her son Cliff that he was going to India. This was through a secret code that they had agreed during his last visit - to evade the censor, who might have scored out this information for being militarily sensitive.

Tuesday 11 August 1942: I wonder all the time where Cliff is, and where he is going and how he is, it is never far from my mind. I wondered when my lad would see an English spring again - and would he still have his wide flashing smile when we met?

Diary entries are missing from January 1944 to May 1945.

In these years Cliff returned to England. He was wounded in action in Italy in November 1944. Arthur married his sweetheart, Edith. They then lived in Ireland. Russian troops invaded Germany and the western Allies drove the Germans out of France and towards Berlin. The blackout was lifted, but rationing was as strict as ever. The Allies discovered the concentration camps. VE Day was approaching.

Thursday 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. But I will not go back to the narrowness of my husband's 'I don't want anyone else's company but yours'.

I looked at his placid blank face and marvelled 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.

I know that I'm not the sweet woman I used to be but rather 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.

I tore the rosy rags Cliff had draped around a few of his illusions. I told him he stood at the crossroads, and if he took the left-hand path, he would end up like my father's n'er-do-well brother. One thing about him, though, he can 'take it'. Maybe when he is alone, some of my words will make him think.

Wednesday 23 May 1945: For the first time, it seems that he [Cliff] wants to begin to build his life and doesn't talk so foolishly of never settling down again, of just living where he wanted, as long as he wanted - he didn't want ties etc.

His year's abroad, and his illness on top of having no security, had made him very difficult, both for himself and for us who love him yet things are looking as if they will all work out, thank God.

Sunday 10 June 1945: Cliff was down to London, planning to study interior design. Arthur was still based in Northern Ireland as a tax inspector.

Arthur was explaining why controls will have to stay for years, shocking his father to his soul by saying we will all be happier when Communism, in a modified sense, was spread widely all over the word; and saying that Churchill - grand as he is, and marvellous as he was in wartime - cannot lead us back to real honest-to-goodness peace through 'big business' methods, which will always mean slumps and inflation.

I never get shocked by anything the boys says, I always encouraged them to think for themselves, heart thankful when they had opinions and did not voice other people's view - but I had difficulty tonight in not laughing out loud.

My husband looked as if he had found a cuckoo in the nest, he was reared a Tory and will die one.

Monday 18 June 1945: I can never go back to that harem existence that my husband thinks so desirable.

Wednesday 14 August 1945: World War Two ends

For Nella's reactions to public events of the war, see War Diary of Nella Last: Part Two

Find out more

Books

Nella Last's War edited by Richard Broad and Suzi Fleming (Falling Wall Press, 1981). This edited version of the diary spans only the wartime years, whilst the original diary covers the years from 1939 to 1965.

Places to visit

The Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness, traces the development of the town from a tiny hamlet to a major centre for British shipbuilding.