We Are At War

The Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times

By: Simon Garfield

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Paperback | 15 September 2006 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
448 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
24.9 x 17 x 7.6

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The highly-acclaimed diaries of ordinary people's lives in WWII, packaged as a massmarket woman's read for the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of war

Of all the accounts written about the Second World War, none are more compelling than the personal diaries of those who lived through it. We Are At War is the story of five everyday folk, who, living on the brink of chaos, recorded privately on paper their most intimate hopes and fears.

Pam Ashford, a woman who keeps her head when all around are losing theirs, writes with comic genius about life in her Glasgow shipping office. Christopher Tomlin, a writing-paper salesman for whom business is booming, longs to be called up like his brother. Eileen Potter organises evacuations for flea-ridden children, while mother-of-three Tilly Rice is frustrated to be sent to Cornwall. And Maggie Joy Blunt tries day-by-day to keep a semblance of her ordinary life.

Entering their world as they lived it, each diary entry is poignantly engrossing. Amid the tumultuous start to the war, these ordinary British people are by turns apprehensive and despairing, spirited and cheerful - and always fascinatingly, vividly real.

Industry Reviews

"Wonderful stuff" Sunday Times "Fascinating, delightful, illuminating. The diarists soon become like old friends ... and make our wartime past seem no more distant than yesterday" Mail on Sunday "It's always easy to imagine people in this period becalmed in a sepia-toned limbo. This book tells the messy, but far more interesting, truth" Time Out "Few books have so successfully stepped inside the minds of the British people during wartime" Metro "A fascinating account of everyday life in Britain" Good Housekeeping

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Introduction	p. 1
The Holidays: (24 August-3 September 1939)	p. 9
Tension on the Carpet: (4 September-5 October)	p. 27
The Royal Oak: (6-30 October)	p. 45
The Pail!: (31 October-2 December)	p. 69
Funf: (3-31 December)	p. 109
The Government Takes Your Son: (1-28 January)	p. 139
Miss Bousie Wishes To Know: (1-25 February)	p. 159
We Are At War: (26 February-4 April)	p. 177
The Milkman's Report: (8 April-15 May)	p. 191
Bombing Where My Friends Live: (16 May-4 June)	p. 225
Joan and Robert: (5-21 June)	p. 245
The First Warnings: (22 June-11 July)	p. 275
The Cost of Living: (12 July-5 August)	p. 301
Coal, Dustbin and Drain: (6-31 August)	p. 327
Truth, Journalism and the Sky Descending: (1-24 September)	p. 353
New World Order: (25 September-9 October)	p. 373
History of the People: (10-28 October)	p. 389
Epilogue	p. 412
Index	p. 421
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

We Are At War

The Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

More in British & Irish History

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The Story of Doctor Who

Abandoned Women : Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas

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The Remarkable Mrs Reibey

The convict who became Australia's richest businesswoman

The Journals of Captain Cook

Penguin Classics

Say Nothing

True Story Of Murder and Memory In Northern Ireland

The Anarchy

The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West

Thirty-Two Words for Field

Lost Words of the Irish Landscape

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