Customer Reviews
Just read it! - By: bookworm, 26 Feb 2008 
I can only add to the unalloyed praise of others & wish that Nella Last could know what pleasure & enlightenment her "scribbling" would bring to others over 60 years later.
She writes beautifully & naturally, but what's most interesting is the way she changes as the war progresses. At the beginning she is sickly & weak, plagued with arthritis, & refers to a "breakdown" she had a few years before. But she determines to "do something" for the war effort & joins the WVS. From there she goes from strength to strength, & the evolution of her ideas is fascinating; she comes to see her conventional marriage to an old stick of a husband as "slavery". She's also very observant & perceptive of the people around her.
She writes lyrically of walks home by moonlight, & trips out to the countryside at Coniston Water, but also of the stresses of the blitz, the challenges of getting palatable meals on the table every day, & everyday squabbles & power games at the WVS. She has a truly open mind, always questioning & wondering what the future holds for her sons & the other young people she knows.
I don't want to say too much about it; just read it. It's one of those books where you long to meet the author; she really does seem like someone you know & admire.
Quite Incredible - read it - By: Sally, 20 Feb 2008 A fantastic book, I couldn't put it down. Nella could never have imagined that her diaries would have such meaning so many years after she wrote them. The detail is interestingin it's own right & well written. I love the ins & outs of Nella's life & difficulties. I am interestedin the people she writes about. I worry for her sons with her. But beyond that, she has made me look at myself. I have started to look at the way I cook, wastage, how to make things last & go further. The book has made me consider some of my own personal relationships & opened my eyes to the way a mother feels & thinks about her son. It has had me thinking about my grandmother & how she would have gone through the same thing. I hope Nella can look down & know how wonderful this book is.
An Ordinary Woman living through an Extraordinary time. - By: laineyf, 09 Feb 2008 This is a book that I really enjoyed. Nella Last is an ordinary housewife aged 49in the second world war, & it is the story of her everyday life, & how the war affected it, & how she coped. I have total admiration for the people who lived through world wars,in whatever capacity, whether military or civilian. I think that we really don't appreciate their efforts enough, & speaking for myself, I really don't know very much about what it was likein war-time, other than what I have read or seen on tv. I empathised with her so much when her boys went to do their military service, & she tried to keep a 'stiff upper lip' while quietly breaking her heart. I loved the fact that she didn't just allow herself to be dominated by her husband, that she found her nichein the shop & the canteen, & she never lost sight of what she thought was important. These people went through so much, yet never lost their sense of humour, or their ability to make the best of a very bad situation. It is a great read, & a marvellous insight into the British personality, I feel. I wonder how Nella Last would feel, knowing that her 'scribblings' as she called them, were being read avidly 60 years after the war, & appreciated & enjoyed by people whose lives would be so altered had the outcome of that war been different.
Utterly engrossing - By: hiljean, 18 Sep 2007 Like many other reviewers here, I bought this book having enjoyed the TV dramatisation so much. I was not disappointed! There is a great deal to enjoy as the diaries give so much detail about many different aspects of life during the Second World War. Nella's growing awareness of her own abilities & her increased self-confidence as she has to tackle new challenges are an indication of the changesin women's lives that would eventually surface during the following decades. She speaks to us so directly through these diaries, that you feel totally involvedin her experiences. She also displays humour & perception, & I was sorry to come to the end of the book.
what a wonderful book - By: K. Dwyer, 29 Jul 2007 Without a doubt this has got to be one of the most wonderful, thought provoking, emotional yet rewarding books I've ever read. There wasn't a single part of this book I didn't like, I wanted to savour every bit of it. Nella Last is someone who I came to greatly admire. She was resourceful, kind, helpful & very sensitive & thoughtful.
She always strived to do the best by her family & look after others - & despite her own nerves, depression & anxiety she did a sterling job. I felt such empathy with her when she described her anxieties, her tears & her down days - even though our experiences are poles & decades apart - nothing really changesin the human psyche.
I loved her vivid descriptions of the food she cooked, how she scrimped & saved & put by & still managed to create all these nourishing meals so that her husband & her sons didn't go hungry. How she found time to do all she did is a mystery, but she did it & it was people like her that kept our country going.
I'm really sorry to have finished the book & not have any more of it to read such was the quality of the writing. I felt as though I knew all the family, & was party to so many secrets.
I can't really find enough superlatives to describe it - a required read for anyone interestedin history or anything to do with the Wars. Nella's beautifully honed prose is a delight to read, & something that Victoria Wood also captured beautifullyin her reworking of the diary for TV.
