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

by Sue Bruley, Elsie Whiteman

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, World War II

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Caryatid · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been a good and fascinating book but the editing is atrocious. Only concerning aspects of machine shop work vast areas of private life were expunged by the editor who learned nothing from the in depth writings of Nella Last.
A huge opportunity was missed by the editor to include information on the details of machines and tools and the problems encountered and how they were solved. So this is a failure on two fronts, the rare insight into a so-called male field of engineering and also losing the social and personal life so engrossing with Nella's book.
Too much meddling by the editor cut a book that could/should have been well over 400 pages long at least to a mere 250 or so. The editor even admits that the much longer manuscript is available at the Imperial War Museum, I have to say, for those unable to drop in there is the reason we have researchers and editors supplying the world with material the diarist kindly made available.
One might wonder if at the time of going to press there was a wartime or other restriction on paper ,but surely not in 2001?
Perhaps this is an era of the once over lightly by shallow readers by equally shallow editors...

[Trawets · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sue Bruley has edited the diary of two middle-aged, middle-class ladies who volunteered for factory work from February 1942 to April 1945. Having previously run a genteel tea-room and been leading lights of of the English Folk Dance Society, factory life was quite a shock for Kathleen Church-Bliss and Elsie Whiteman.
The women worked as lathe operators for an aircraft component manufacturers, their diary highlights the poor working conditions and appalling and inefficient management of the time.
The diary is very interesting, and even exciting at the time of the V1assualt, but has been edited to concentrate on factory life, whereas I would have loved to know more of the ladies social and domestic life.

[Gill]

I may never finish this book. It's interesting in places but the small typeface isn't user-friendly.

[Samantha Hammond · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to give up unfortunately, the font was far too small to read it.

[Tiffany Johnstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely love this book, The honest point of view of what factory work was like. The hardship and the hours. How they coped with constant air raids and bombings.