Working for victory: A diary of life in a Second World War factory

Whilst running their genteel restaurant in the Home Counties, Kate Bliss and Elsie Whiteman found themselves directed by the Ministry of Labour in late 1941 to work in an aircraft component factory at the height of Britain's war effort. Thrown into a whole new world of industrial work, the two women kept a joint diary from 1942 to 1944. This diary provides a unique insight into life in a wartime factory, the destiny of one and half million British women. The entry of large numbers of women into the workforce brought about a permanent change in the attitudes to womens employment and the diaries record the effect of the new social and economic freedoms. Sue Bruley's introduction places these diaries in the context of women's experience in WW II and discusses their relationship to other published women's memoirs of the time.