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"World War, 1939-1945 Women Great Britain Biography."
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Nine Wartime Lives
This book provides a fascinating re-evaluation of the social history of the Second World War and the 20th century making of the modern self. Using the wartime diaries of nine individuals, the book illuminates the impact of war on attitudes to citizenship, the changing relationships between men and women, and the search for meaning in a wartime context of limitless violence. The diaries from which this book is derived were written by some of the unusually self-reflective and public-spirited people who agreed to write intimate journals about their daily activity for the social research organisation, Mass Observation. Each in their way is vivid, interesting and surprising. One of the nine diarists discussed is Nella Last, whose published diaries have been a source of delight and fascination for thousands of readers. A central insight underpins the book: in seeking to make the best of our own lives, each of us makes selective use of the resources of our shared culture in a unique way; in so doing, we contribute, however modestly, to molecular processes of historical change. The book resists nostalgic contrasts between the presumed dutiful citizenship of wartime Britain and contemporary anti-social individualism, pointing instead to longer-run processes of change, rooted as much in struggles for personal autonomy in the private sphere, as in the politics of active citizenship in public life.
eBook
Love and Romance in Britain, 1918 - 1970
The new histories of love and romance offered within this edited collection illustrate the many changes, but also the surprising continuities in understandings of love, romance, affection, intimacy and sex from the First World War until the beginning of the Women's Liberation movement.
eBook
GI brides : the wartime girls who crossed the Atlantic for love
\"Worn down by years of war and hardship, girls like Sylvia, Margaret, and Gwendolyn were thrilled when American GI's arrived in Britain with their exotic accents, handsome uniforms and aura of Hollywood glamor. Others, like Rae, who distrusted the Yanks, were eventually won over by their easy charm. So when VE Day finally came, for the 70,000 women who'd become GI brides, it was tinged with sadness--it meant leaving their homeland behind to follow their husbands across the Atlantic. And the long voyage was just the beginning of an even bigger journey. Adapting to a new culture thousands of miles from home, often with a man they barely knew, was difficult-but these women survived the Blitz and could cope with anything. GI BRIDES shares the sweeping, compelling, and moving true stories of four women who gave up everything and crossed an ocean for love\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
For the Duration
In her vivid memoir For the Duration, Ashbee gives a candid, often humorous account of her experiences during World War II as she rose through the ranks in Britain's Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Joining shortly after the outbreak of the war in 1939, Ashbee began in the nerve centre of the Royal Air Force's (RAF's) battle with the enemy, soon advanced to the intelligence department, and later served as an administrator at various RAF stations. She relates how she and other WAAFs coped with a war machine that desperately needed the help of women but whose all-male leadership did not quite know how to manage the sudden influx of females. Throughout her lively narrative she limns the impact of war on individuals and families from all classes and walks of life, both in and out of the military. As a radar teller, she tracked Rudolph Hess as he flew across the North Sea. As a writer and producer of original \"\"shows\"\" in her off duty hours, she brought forth amateur theatricals at several RAF stations, dispelling much of the incredible monotony and boredom of duty in remote outposts. Ashbee's vitality infuses this memoir as it moves from the \"\"phony\"\" war and the Battle of Britain, to intelligence and duties as an officer to, at last, the victory celebrations in London.
eBook
A cool and lonely courage : the untold story of sister spies in Occupied France
Eileen Nearne and her sister Jacqueline were agents for the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, working undercover in Nazi-occupied France to send crucial intelligence to the Allies. But the war dealt these sisters a cruel hand. While Jacqueline narrowly evaded capture, Eileen was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo before being incarcerated in Ravensbruck concentration camp. She was only 23. Now, for the first time, the truth about these fiercely patriotic women is told in full, their unwavering courage at great personal cost paid tribute to at last.
Book
Refugees at the Margins: Jewish Domestics in Britain 1938-1945
From shortly after the Anschluss until the beginning of the Second World War, about twenty thousand Jewish refugees were admitted to Britain as live-in domestic servants in British homes. These women (and a few men) comprised about one-third of all Jewish refugees admitted into Britain in the 1930s, but unlike prominent scientists and intellectuals or the Kindertransportees, they have remained at the margins of British public memory of the 1930s. However, hundreds of these former refugee domestics have left testimonies and memoirs that narrate their experiences before, during, and after the war including their reception by Anglo-Jews and non-Jews, and their experiences of alienation, belonging, adjustment, and loss. This paper examines these testimonies to find commonalities in Jewish refugee domestics' pre-emigration and refugee lives and argues that the very terms under which they were allowed to come to the United Kingdom as well as the limits of testimony-giving have perpetuated their marginalization and absence from Jewish refugee and wartime social histories.
Journal Article
D-Day girls : the spies who armed the resistance, sabotaged the Nazis, and helped win World War II
\"The ... story of the ... women recruited by Britain's elite spy agency to sabotage the Nazis, shore up the Resistance, and pave the way for Allied victory in World War II.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
An intriguing life
From wartime England to Nixon’s America and beyond, Cynthia Helms was witness to some of the seminal events of our time—Vietnam, Watergate, and especially the demoralization of the CIA in the 1970s for political purposes. Opening with her feminist “epiphany” in 1968 (the annus horribilus as she describes it) that led her to end her first marriage of 24 years, this memoir reveals a world where appearances always had to be questioned, where rumors and gossip carried the weight of intrigue. Helms grew up on a farm in Maldon, England and served as one of the original Boat Crew Wrens during World War II. She came to the United States after the war with her first husband, a physician. Her later marriage to Richard Helms introduced her to a world previously known only to her in books, not just the physical world from Mexico to Fiji to Iran, but also the world of a spymaster who enjoyed the confidence of some of the most important leaders of the late twentieth century. Her time as the ambassador’s wife in Tehran on the eve of the Iranian Revolution is especially telling, as she witnesses the charming but deeply flawed Shah slowly lose his way with his own people. Her “inside the beltway” observations are no less captivating, especially when her husband was being vilified by ambitious congressmen for events that happened long ago and far away and in a completely different national security context. Fascinating and highly readable, An Intriguing Life is a window to our most recent history.
eBook