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Blitz Writing: Night Shift & It Was Different At The Time
Emerging out of the 1940-1941 London Blitz, the drama of these two short works, a novel and a memoir, comes from the courage and endurance of ordinary people met in the factories, streets and lodging houses of a city under bombardment. Inez Holden's novella Night Shift follows a largely working-class cast of characters for five night shifts in a factory that produces camera parts for war planes. It Was Different At The Time is Holden's account of wartime life from April 1938 to August 1941, drawn from her own diary. This was intended to be a joint project written with her friend George Orwell (he was in the end too busy to contribute), and includes disguised appearances of Orwell and other notable literary figures of the period. The experiences recorded in It Was Different At The Time overlap in period and subject with Night Shift, setting up a vibrant dialogue between the two texts. Inez Holden (1903-1974) was a British writer and literary figure whose social and professional connections embraced most of London's literary and artistic life. She modelled for Augustus John, worked alongside Evelyn Waugh, and had close relationships with George Orwell, Stevie Smith, H G Wells, Cyril Connolly, and Anthony Powell. The introduction and notes are by Kristin Bluemel, exploring how these short prose texts work as multiple stories: of Inez Holden herself, the history of the Blitz, of middlebrow women's writing, of Second World War fiction, and of the world of work.
194 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 2019
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Inez Holden
11 books1 followerBeatrice Inez Lisette (Paget) Holden was a British writer and Bohemian social figure and journalist.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 24, 2020
From the very beginning of Night Shift, the reader is immersed in the chaos and destruction of the London Blitz as the sounds of an air-raid form the backdrop to the work of the women employed in the factory. “From outside there came to us the air-raid orchestra of airplane hum, anti-aircraft shell bursts, ambulance and fire bells.”
The women of the night shift vary in age and background. For example, the young woman nicknamed Feather because she repeatedly forgets to bring her own cup to use during their tea break, or the talkative Mabs, endlessly chronicling her disappointments. “Her own life was a burden to her. She was like a pedlar, trudging along with a great weight of goods, whose only happiness is in being able to unpack the parcel and set out the store.”
Our narrator recounts the chat, gossip and ‘cut-up scraps of conversation’ that accompany the shifts: their grumbles too, chiefly about the menu on offer in the shed that serves as the staff canteen. “Every evening there was the same trouble about the food. It was a short play performed once nightly with alternating villains.” The women of the night shift also have an amusingly dismissive view of the sloppy behaviour of their counterparts on the day shift.
The author has an ear for the idiosyncrasies of speech. For instance, Mabs’ personification of Hitler as she describes a raid on the East End of London. “Well, of course he’s bin over again since then… But it’s never bin as bad as it was that first night when he come over. It was wicked; I reckon if he was to come down in the East End after all he’s done to us, there wouldn’t be one single bit of him left.” Or, hearing people refer to the beginning of the war as ‘the old days’ as if it was the distant past rather than just a few months before.
Over a period of six days, the reader witnesses the tedium and repetitive nature of the work the women undertake. And the difficulties don’t just start when they clock on but on the journey to and from their shifts. “It was clear that no one could enjoy making a tiring, cold and dangerous journey each night to a factory, to work at a mechanical job for long hours, sit for an hour in an uncomfortable shed and then work for a further five-and-a-half hours; and after this, set out in the cold dark morning, perhaps with enemy airplanes still overhead, to struggle through the tiresome and tiring journey home, and so on for six nights out of every seven.” No wonder then that the high point of the week is Friday – pay night.
Saturday sees one of the worst nights of the Blitz (so much so that it is referred to as “the” Saturday). As with the opening of the book, the air-raid is described in the form of a fantastically vivid soundscape.
“The penny whistle, the siren wail, airplane hum, gunfire, penny whistle again, howling of dogs, a tear-sheet sound of bomb, crackling sound of fire, running feet, dragging of a stirrup pump along a floor, human voice giving out directions, water jetting against burning rafters, the stones of a house falling in quickly, talk, ambulance bells, fire-engine bells, breaking glass, patter of shell splinter like fine rain, boots brave-walking along a street, machine-gun fire in the air, shell splinter on the ground – a noise like a barbed wire rug being rolled up, wardens’ whistles, firewatchers’ whistles, auxiliary fire-engine wheels and shouted orders.”
This fictional account is based closely on the author’s own experience of the same night, recorded in her diary at the time and later in It Was Different At The Time, of which more in a moment. Night Shift ends with a sense of national pride and hope for the future, a future in which, reflecting Holden’s own socialist beliefs, the courage of people may be used for “their greater happiness and well-being”.
As well as being a fascinating companion piece to Night Shift, It Was Different At The Time demonstrates Inez Holden’s observational skills and neat turns of phrase. For example, her description of guests who move between the country houses of acquaintances as “a chain-gang of house parties” or of a quarrel between husband and wife at a drinks party as an “argument for two egoists – crescendo, allegro and piano”.
A memorable scene is Holden’s attendance – for journalistic reasons – at a 1938 meeting where Sir Oswald Mosley delivers a speech. I couldn’t help thinking of modern parallels for her observation that, “Sometimes there appear on the political horizon men who see strategy instead of suffering, politics instead of people. Men who have a kind of tone-deafness to humanity… Such men are dangerous”.
As 1938 comes to an end, Holden starts work as a Red Cross nurse in a large hospital. Again, she displays her keen ear for vocal mannerisms such as the banter of her fellow nurses at break times and the way patients become referred to by their bed number (even by the other patients). Or the ceremony of ‘going down’ with the patient to be operated on being wheeled away to cries of good luck, as if he were “a king being carried on a litter into battle”.
August and September 1939 bring nightly air-raids lasting up to nine hours and I was moved by Holden’s description of watching people head for the shelters carrying rugs and blankets. “The sight of this procession of people with their bundles of bedclothes at sundown in the London streets is deeply touching.” The book is full of such striking images. For example, the sight of a tree whose branches are draped with items of clothing blown from a bombed building which Holden likens to a surrealist painting.
Throughout, the author is alert to class distinctions and the ways in which the War and wartime regulations, such as clothes rationing, will affect rich and poor differently. Or the unfairness of women being offered lower wages than men for the same work.
I can’t end this review without mentioning the fascinating introduction by Kristin Bluemel which provides not only informed reflection on both texts but also more information about Inez Holden herself. Also the notes at the end of the book prepared by Kristin Bluemel and publisher, Kate Macdonald.
The women of the night shift vary in age and background. For example, the young woman nicknamed Feather because she repeatedly forgets to bring her own cup to use during their tea break, or the talkative Mabs, endlessly chronicling her disappointments. “Her own life was a burden to her. She was like a pedlar, trudging along with a great weight of goods, whose only happiness is in being able to unpack the parcel and set out the store.”
Our narrator recounts the chat, gossip and ‘cut-up scraps of conversation’ that accompany the shifts: their grumbles too, chiefly about the menu on offer in the shed that serves as the staff canteen. “Every evening there was the same trouble about the food. It was a short play performed once nightly with alternating villains.” The women of the night shift also have an amusingly dismissive view of the sloppy behaviour of their counterparts on the day shift.
The author has an ear for the idiosyncrasies of speech. For instance, Mabs’ personification of Hitler as she describes a raid on the East End of London. “Well, of course he’s bin over again since then… But it’s never bin as bad as it was that first night when he come over. It was wicked; I reckon if he was to come down in the East End after all he’s done to us, there wouldn’t be one single bit of him left.” Or, hearing people refer to the beginning of the war as ‘the old days’ as if it was the distant past rather than just a few months before.
Over a period of six days, the reader witnesses the tedium and repetitive nature of the work the women undertake. And the difficulties don’t just start when they clock on but on the journey to and from their shifts. “It was clear that no one could enjoy making a tiring, cold and dangerous journey each night to a factory, to work at a mechanical job for long hours, sit for an hour in an uncomfortable shed and then work for a further five-and-a-half hours; and after this, set out in the cold dark morning, perhaps with enemy airplanes still overhead, to struggle through the tiresome and tiring journey home, and so on for six nights out of every seven.” No wonder then that the high point of the week is Friday – pay night.
Saturday sees one of the worst nights of the Blitz (so much so that it is referred to as “the” Saturday). As with the opening of the book, the air-raid is described in the form of a fantastically vivid soundscape.
“The penny whistle, the siren wail, airplane hum, gunfire, penny whistle again, howling of dogs, a tear-sheet sound of bomb, crackling sound of fire, running feet, dragging of a stirrup pump along a floor, human voice giving out directions, water jetting against burning rafters, the stones of a house falling in quickly, talk, ambulance bells, fire-engine bells, breaking glass, patter of shell splinter like fine rain, boots brave-walking along a street, machine-gun fire in the air, shell splinter on the ground – a noise like a barbed wire rug being rolled up, wardens’ whistles, firewatchers’ whistles, auxiliary fire-engine wheels and shouted orders.”
This fictional account is based closely on the author’s own experience of the same night, recorded in her diary at the time and later in It Was Different At The Time, of which more in a moment. Night Shift ends with a sense of national pride and hope for the future, a future in which, reflecting Holden’s own socialist beliefs, the courage of people may be used for “their greater happiness and well-being”.
As well as being a fascinating companion piece to Night Shift, It Was Different At The Time demonstrates Inez Holden’s observational skills and neat turns of phrase. For example, her description of guests who move between the country houses of acquaintances as “a chain-gang of house parties” or of a quarrel between husband and wife at a drinks party as an “argument for two egoists – crescendo, allegro and piano”.
A memorable scene is Holden’s attendance – for journalistic reasons – at a 1938 meeting where Sir Oswald Mosley delivers a speech. I couldn’t help thinking of modern parallels for her observation that, “Sometimes there appear on the political horizon men who see strategy instead of suffering, politics instead of people. Men who have a kind of tone-deafness to humanity… Such men are dangerous”.
As 1938 comes to an end, Holden starts work as a Red Cross nurse in a large hospital. Again, she displays her keen ear for vocal mannerisms such as the banter of her fellow nurses at break times and the way patients become referred to by their bed number (even by the other patients). Or the ceremony of ‘going down’ with the patient to be operated on being wheeled away to cries of good luck, as if he were “a king being carried on a litter into battle”.
August and September 1939 bring nightly air-raids lasting up to nine hours and I was moved by Holden’s description of watching people head for the shelters carrying rugs and blankets. “The sight of this procession of people with their bundles of bedclothes at sundown in the London streets is deeply touching.” The book is full of such striking images. For example, the sight of a tree whose branches are draped with items of clothing blown from a bombed building which Holden likens to a surrealist painting.
Throughout, the author is alert to class distinctions and the ways in which the War and wartime regulations, such as clothes rationing, will affect rich and poor differently. Or the unfairness of women being offered lower wages than men for the same work.
I can’t end this review without mentioning the fascinating introduction by Kristin Bluemel which provides not only informed reflection on both texts but also more information about Inez Holden herself. Also the notes at the end of the book prepared by Kristin Bluemel and publisher, Kate Macdonald.
September 29, 2019
Born in the early 20th century, Inez Holden was a British author and bohemian socialite who became known as much for her cultural lifestyle as for her writing. (Esteemed writers such as HG Wells, Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell and Anthony Powell could be listed amongst Holden’s many literary friends.)
During her lifetime, Holden published a range of work comprising seven novels, two collections of short stories and an observational diary, the latter covering the early years of WW2. Two of these works are included here: Night Shift, a novella set in a London factory during the Blitz; and It Was Different at the Time, the diary mentioned above. Together they provide a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary, working-class people – many of them women – doing their best to support the war effort in Britain.
Night Shift is a wonderfully vivid piece of writing, alive with the sounds and rhythms of life in a busy factory producing camera parts for reconnaissance aircraft. The novella has a reportage feel, a strong sense of authenticity that stems from Holden’s closeness to this kind of working environment during the early years of WW2.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2019...
During her lifetime, Holden published a range of work comprising seven novels, two collections of short stories and an observational diary, the latter covering the early years of WW2. Two of these works are included here: Night Shift, a novella set in a London factory during the Blitz; and It Was Different at the Time, the diary mentioned above. Together they provide a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary, working-class people – many of them women – doing their best to support the war effort in Britain.
Night Shift is a wonderfully vivid piece of writing, alive with the sounds and rhythms of life in a busy factory producing camera parts for reconnaissance aircraft. The novella has a reportage feel, a strong sense of authenticity that stems from Holden’s closeness to this kind of working environment during the early years of WW2.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2019...
April 13, 2025
3 Stars
Considering the circles Holden traveled in, I was expecting something more unique. Worth a read though.
Considering the circles Holden traveled in, I was expecting something more unique. Worth a read though.
May 24, 2019
Thank you Handheld Press for sending me a review copy, in exchange I'm providing you all with an honest review.
This book was a nice change of pace to my other recent reads. I'm a huge history buff and I had done a lot of WWI and Russian Revolution reading for my nonfiction so to have a change of pace with WWII was great. Not to mention this is a 2 for 1 really, we get Inez Holden's novella Night Shift along with her wartime memoir, It Was Different At The Time.
Both had their own slice of history to bring to the table, they are both pieces though that are exploring the sort of people that exist in this time period. This isn't a look at WWII as an event as much as a time period in someone's life. Holden has a talent for describing people as an outsider that's a joy to read and the details she provides are unlike other accounts I've read. In her novella, she describes the work week, and this includes the machinery that many of us now forget were used to help so much in the war and that was manned quite a bit by women at that point in time. She also recalls things as 'mundane' as the buses, and bicycles people used to get around during air raids, and this goes for her memoirs as well.
This book was a nice change of pace to my other recent reads. I'm a huge history buff and I had done a lot of WWI and Russian Revolution reading for my nonfiction so to have a change of pace with WWII was great. Not to mention this is a 2 for 1 really, we get Inez Holden's novella Night Shift along with her wartime memoir, It Was Different At The Time.
Both had their own slice of history to bring to the table, they are both pieces though that are exploring the sort of people that exist in this time period. This isn't a look at WWII as an event as much as a time period in someone's life. Holden has a talent for describing people as an outsider that's a joy to read and the details she provides are unlike other accounts I've read. In her novella, she describes the work week, and this includes the machinery that many of us now forget were used to help so much in the war and that was manned quite a bit by women at that point in time. She also recalls things as 'mundane' as the buses, and bicycles people used to get around during air raids, and this goes for her memoirs as well.
September 21, 2019
An interesting fly on the wall view of factory life during WWII and woman on the street view of the Blitz. Strong sense of immediacy and recreation of the different people in London.
May 21, 2019
This was interesting at times, but a little too much of its period and anecdotal for my tastes. First the novella takes us through the drudgery of women working in a metalworks for the war effort, with the emphasis a little too much on the boredom and trivial nattering of it all for my taste. The second section shows our author to be socially aware, as a lot of her diary entry-styled reportage of the build-up to WW2 and the medical work she carried out at the time concerns people's manners at parties, and what they wear and so on. Still, there is enough comedy and drama in both, even if neither really lit up the page. Certainly if you have an interest in female labour in wartime, or documentary-styled writing of the period, this is worth a good look.
October 29, 2019
It was only a review in the TLS that brought this writer, and this edition of two of her works, to my attention. There is little to distinguish Holden's novella from her memoir, but that is certainly not to say that the writing is not distinguished and of enduring interest for reasons that go beyond the period and subject matter. Both works are structured in a diary or journal form and both focus on the speech and preoccupations of ordinary people. Inevitably this draws comparisons with the sociological focus and methods of Mass Observation, however, Holden's approach to writing is stubbornly literary. Holden's narrative persona participates in the drudgery and the danger of working through the blitz but is recognisably separate and isolated within the social milieu that she is inhabiting. Her attention to the speech of those around her, and her reproduction of the phonetic values of that speech, could feel patronising if less sensitively handled. In both of these short works, however, Holden treats the speech of her characters as connoting broader meanings of resistance, independence and strength. Following a quote from an injured man whose home has been bombed, Holden comments: "These men and women of work-town often speak of the enemy and even of a whole squadron of bombers as 'he'. Sometimes they mean 'Jerry', the collective name for all Germans in war-time, and sometimes they mean Hitler, but, in either case, this personification of the enemy as 'he' is a kind of gigantic debunk of the whole Nazi melodrama of bombs, paratroops, drawling Haw-Haw, screaming Hitler, limping Goebbels, and all the rest of it" (pp. 161-2). It is good that these little gems of books are back in print.
April 27, 2021
This was an impulse purchase that I really enjoyed, a pair of short works by a new-to-me writer, the first a novel about work in a British factory during WWII, the second a diary she kept of her wartime experiences (always intended for publication as a document of the time). Her style is very clear and crisp, with some startling, incisive descriptions. The people have such specific individualism, and the dialogue is amazingly lifelike. I really appreciated that, in the midst of the Blitz, the factory workers are mostly obsessed with their unfair wages, and complaining about the people on the day shift. Overall, though, I found the diary even better. She describes working in hospitals, spending nights as a fire watcher, and going to social events, including a dinner party just before the war with a Nazi guest. The hosts implore everyone not to talk about politics. Some things never change! Throughout, the time period comes to vivid life, and Holden has a strong narrative personality, without ever seeming to impose herself on her observations. As an added bonus, friends like George Orwell, H.G. Wells, and especially a thinly-disguised Stevie Smith (the latter described as a "regular girl of chaos," as if everyone understands what these girls of chaos are like) pop in and out.
May 11, 2025
This remarkable book contains two distinct pieces, a short novel of the London Blitz and pared down extracts from a diary of the same period. Both are excellent in their different ways. Holden writes simply and clearly with wit and deep intelligence. There are many observations and comments of great originality and value. Even some of the less original statements often have considerable power: I liked, for instance, the description of a Roman Catholic nurse who had, 'through the cunning of clerics and the prejudice of prelates, been brought to such an abject state of mind that she was able to act with the greatest cruelty while still keeping to herself the inner smirk of self-righteousness' (165-6).
It is deeply frustrating to read in the final diary entry (180-1) her interview with a factory owner determined to keep women workers on starvation wages and to know that 80 years later these injustices are still with us. But Holden's stories also tell us that not every member of the 'greatest generation' was all that great, and that is somehow weirdly comforting.
This edition has a useful introduction.
It is deeply frustrating to read in the final diary entry (180-1) her interview with a factory owner determined to keep women workers on starvation wages and to know that 80 years later these injustices are still with us. But Holden's stories also tell us that not every member of the 'greatest generation' was all that great, and that is somehow weirdly comforting.
This edition has a useful introduction.
March 27, 2021
This is a really interesting book consisting of a novella set in the night shift of a factory in London during the Second World War, and then the author's diary written in pretty much the same time period. It really makes you realise how much a lot of the people living through night bombing in London (and I assume across Europe) just got on with life the best they could.
The characters in the Night Shift didn't seem exaggerated, and they were struggling with the same day to day issues of most people- love, money, work, promotion, bad and good managers...
The writing is excellent, it almost felt like the Night Shift was a diary as well.
In the second part of the book were excerpts from the diary of the author who lived in London and volunteered at a hospital and is in a very similar, matter of fact style to the Night Shift.
The two books work really well together and it is definitely a book I would recommend.
The characters in the Night Shift didn't seem exaggerated, and they were struggling with the same day to day issues of most people- love, money, work, promotion, bad and good managers...
The writing is excellent, it almost felt like the Night Shift was a diary as well.
In the second part of the book were excerpts from the diary of the author who lived in London and volunteered at a hospital and is in a very similar, matter of fact style to the Night Shift.
The two books work really well together and it is definitely a book I would recommend.
Want to read
November 29, 2020Reminded of this book here https://whatcathyreadnext.wordpress.c...
September 26, 2024
only read night shift, really liked this. i feel charmed and extremely desolate.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews