I thought the blog was long overdue another post from my nan’s memoirs, especially as we head into an uncertain winter. One of the parts about her reflections I find most fascinating is the voice she brings to women’s experiences of the Second World War, particularly when it relates to the path into adulthood and… Continue reading Nan’s Diary: Coming of Age
During lockdown, I’ve been enjoying ‘growing my own’ and have cultivated a decent vegetable garden! It made me reflect on food in the war years and how rationing must have affected people. Nan writes about this when recalling her recuperation from appendicitis back in London during the war: ‘It was while I was at home… Continue reading Nan’s Diary: Rationing
The Coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on many sectors, particularly the arts and heritage, where many museums and theatres are teetering on the brink of survival. Whilst reading through my Nan’s memoirs, recollections of how London theatre coped during the war years shows the importance of the arts in pulling people through the… Continue reading Nan’s Diary: Theatre in the war years
Although my nan and grandad knew each other, they had not yet got together at the time of VE Day in 1945. My nan was in London, whilst my grandad was travelling back from where he had been stationed in Burma, via South Africa. Nan doesn’t say a huge amount about VE Day in her… Continue reading Nan’s VE Day
As well as my own diary of 1990, before she died, my nan wrote a memoir called ‘A Life Worth Living’, detailing her life up to her 70th birthday. It’s full of all the things you wish you’d questioned loved ones on before they are no longer here to ask. I’ve leafed back through it… Continue reading Nan’s Diary: Evacuation – billet #1
My Beautiful Diary of the Amazingly Mundane 