Bickersteth Family World War II Diary. Dear Grandmother (Volume 1) 1939-1942

This family account of life in Britain in wartime is as varied and richly textured as any that exists. The thoughts of old and young, the centrally involved and the isolated, jostle continuously. This volume contains insights into the ways of government and workings of Whitehall, the position of the Church of England, and the problems of education among a vast conscript army. It is also a unique social document of the manner in which the disruptions and danger of life were coped with during wartime. Beautiful descriptions of the Kentish landscape the home guard was defending combine with harrowingly poignant accounts of air-raid shelters in the slums of London.