One of the best books I have
read this year is one that was never intended to become a book: "The
View from the Corner Shop" by Kathleen Hey is a collection of the
real-life diary entries of a woman in her 30s, written in the years 1941
to 1946.
Kathleen Hey worked with her
sister and brother-in-law at their grocery shop in Dewsbury (Yorkshire).
She did not keep a journal for her own amusement, but wrote as one of
hundreds of volunteers participating in the Mass Observation Project.
In case you are not familiar
with the MO project (I wasn't, and had to look it up on wikipedia): It
was a social research organisation founded in 1937 by an anthropologist,
a poet and a filmmaker, aimed at recording everyday life in Britain by
the means of diaries and questionnaires from around 500 untrained
volunteers. (Actually, I find the entire project interesting enough for
it to deserve its own blog post.)
Through Kathleen Hey's writing
- supplemented with plenty of useful historic background information by
the editors -, the reader gets to know her and her world rather well.
Kathleen goes through life with eyes and ears wide open, and a mind that
is capable of thinking beyond what is of her immediate concern. While
she does not fail to see the humour in some of the goings-on in her
family, at the shop or in town, she understands the seriousness of
political decisions and their impact on a large scale.
As the years - and the war
with all the restrictions it imposes on everyone's daily lives - go on,
she seems to be losing some of her humour, and a dull, grey tiredness
(not only in the physical sense) begins to dominate.
Even when the war ends (the
diary spans another year after the war), she can not seem to get her
former energy and enthusiasm back. I won't tell you too much here,
because I'd really like for you to read this book for yourself;
therefore, let me just say that I was deeply touched by the thoughts and
feelings Kathleen expresses.
Apart from that, I learned a
lot from this book. For instance, the rationing system (which, I
understand, was still in use in the UK for several years after the war)
is explained.
What surprised me was how people behaved towards each
other. Up until reading this book, I was of the opinion that most people
in the UK see WWII and the years immediately after it as a time when
the nation stood together as a whole, when the slogan "Keep Calm and
Carry On" was not only on posters but also in people's hearts and minds,
when everybody gladly sacrified their small comforts for the benefit of
their fellow Britons and the war effort.
According to Kathleen Hey -
who was really there and wrote things down as they happened, not rose-tinted by nostalgia -, this was
definitely not the case, at least not in the dimensions I was always
made to believe.
On the contrary, there was a
lot of petty arguing and small-scale fighting going on between groups
and individuals with conflicting interests. For instance, young married
women were apparently "getting off lightly", no matter whether they had
children or not. Oranges were a constant bone of contention - who was
entitled to how many, and why? Evacuees from bombed cities were not at
all welcome, and when people were forced to take ithem in, the evacuees (fellow Britons all of them, not
foreigners!) were looked down upon as not being of the same class, not
clean enough, and too demanding.
The young ladies who joined
the workforce as part of the war effort (for instance to work in
ammunition factories) were so well paid and had it so "easy" with nice
quarters and good clothes given to them that others envied them.
Most people Kathleen spoke to
at the shop or knew in town tried to get out of any form of compulsory
tasks (such as fire guarding) if they could.
All this, as I said, came as a
surprise to me. When I read "A God in Ruins" (for instance), it all sounded very different. I
suppose human memory is what it is - not very accurate when looking back
at the past. Kathleen's writing, however, is not looking back; it is a
daily account of what was her present.
Do not be misled by the cover
picture - this is not a "cosy corner shop" novel, but an account that is
touching, thought-provoking and sobering at the same time. Five stars from me.
I have long been fascinated by the Mass Observation project and the diaries that come from it. This is not one I have read before. I will be looking for a copy. It is so interesting to get such a real feel for what people were thinking, feeling, and doing at the time.
ReplyDeleteHello Jennifer, Welcome to my blog! Thank you for reading and leaving a comment. Nice to meet someone who shares my fascination with the MO project! I am sure you know a lot more about it than I.
DeleteI will look for this! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome, Jennifer!
Delete(This is the first time I have two Jennifers commenting on my blog!) :-)
We are legion! LOL!
DeleteThere's a song from the 90's..."27 Jennifers" which about sums up my high school experience....
"I went to school with 27 Jennifers...
I rode the bus with 27 Jennifers..."
Never heard about that song, Jennifer - but when I was at school, there was always at least one or two Claudias in every class, and Monikas and Sabines were also very popular names. I didn't (and still don't) often encounter other Meikes.
DeleteI've not read this book nor ever heard of that project, but to me the image you describe having got from it of what the war years were like seems familiar and no surprise. Hard to say where my impressions have come from, of course I was born only ten years after WWII ended and in my childhood people were still talking of it. In my paternal grandparents' home there was still a box or wallet or something containing old rationing cupons (even if Sweden was officially neutral we were still affected by the war), I remember looking at and "playing" with those in early childhood, and no doubt people talked about and tried to explain to me what they had been used for etc. And at my other grandparents' house I read girls' books that had belonged to my mum and my aunt, who grew up during the war. So even if I did not really understand much else about the war until later, I think I still did get a kind of sense rather early on of how it had affected "ordinary people".
ReplyDeleteThank you, Monica, this was very interesting.
DeleteAs a little girl - I was born in 1968, so more than 20 years after the end of the war -, I often was at my grandparents' house. They had been living there since getting married in 1933, and a lot of what was in the house, along with the stories they told us kids, were reminders of war time. I know a rationing system was in place in Germany, too, and many other hardships befell the ordinary people, no matter whether they were in line with what the murderous government of that time was doing or not.
Every time I read about those years, I am once more grateful that I was born long afterwards - not even my parents remember the actual war (Mum was born in 1944 and Dad in 1942).
I've read other Mass Observation books - what a fascinating resource it is, indeed - but not one that focuses on one person. . I have often wanted to know more about the diaries quoted. So thanks for highlighting this book, I will get hold of a copy!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome, Jenny, and I can imagine you will enjoy this at least as much as I did, if not more.
DeleteThanks for writing about this book. I am fascinated by the home front stories of WWII and know about the mass observation project. I've read two books by Nella Last which were her diaries during the war and after.
ReplyDeleteThere is another Nella Last book out, I've read. I have come across her name when looking up the MO project, and I think I would like to read her diaries, too. Can you recomend them?
DeleteLike your Mum I was born in 1944 and I lived through rationing and a city torn apart by bombing. The MO project is a fascinating one although, to be honest, I've not followed it much. I just popped over to Amazon with a view to buying it (and saw your review) to add to the pile of books waiting for that time in my life when I get back to reading to the extent that I used to read.
ReplyDeleteI am sure you will not regret having bought this one, Graham.
DeleteI am such a fan of reading a book about a certain time period that is written in that same time. I'm always leery of historical novels. I was so interested to read this post.
ReplyDeleteThis one is not a novel, which makes it all the more interesting to me.
DeleteThis looks so interesting and your review makes me want to read it! The MO project sounds really fascinating as well. It reminds me a little bit of the British Up documentary series that starts with "Seven Up" in 1964, following a group of kids from all different backgrounds into adulthood, catching up with them every 7 years. So interesting! xoxo Silke
ReplyDeleteI think I have heard of the series you mention, it sounds interesting and I am definitely going to check it out. Thank you!
Delete