Their darkest hour : the hidden history of the Home Front, 1939-1945 / Stuart Hylton.

Machine generated contents note: 1 Over Here: Internees, Aliens, Fifth Columnists -- 2 The Evacuees -- 3 Class War -- 4 Politically Incorrect -- 5 Civil Defence: Common Sense? -- 6 Battle of the Sexes -- 7 Careless Talk -- 8 War Crimes -- 9 Women at War -- 10 The Legacy of War.

The image we often see of the British during the Second World War is of chirpy London Cockneys enduring air raids and privations with cheery good humour. This book by Stuart Hylton goes some way towards dispelling this myth. In his introduction he says, "My idealised picture was replaced by a reassuringly mixed view of the people and the times, in which grumbles, incompetence, bureaucracy and opportunism lived alongside the sacrifice and bravery that was undoubtedly part of the experience of those years." The author presents a more realistic view of wartime Britain. He deals with the often shameful way so-called aliens were treated. Many of these had fled Nazi oppression, in fear for their lives. Others had been resident in Britain for many years and were established, well-respected members of the community. Stuart Hylton argues that hysteria about a 'fifth column' was whipped up by newspapers. This led directly to internment for many innocent people and they were kept in terrible conditions. He also deals with the contentious issue of the evacuation of mothers and children. The whole process was, in many cases, bungled. Some areas were wholly unprepared for the numbers of evacuees. Influential people were allowed to opt out of taking them and some children were evacuated into areas along the Thames Estuary whilst, at the same time, children normally resident there were evacuated out. There were also issues relating to the vast differences between the inner city working classes and rural inhabitants who were totally unprepared for dealing with children from extremely poor and deprived homes. One of the themes to emerge from Their Darkest Hour is the importance of social class during the Second World War. Women were needed in the workplace to do the jobs traditionally done by men. The brunt of the low paid, unskilled jobs fell on working class women. Middle class women were generally able to do just voluntary war work. Remember, in those days, most housework was hard physical work. There weren't the labour saving devices available now. On top of that, food was scarce and long queues an every day occurrence. This meant that working class women were forced to do two effectively full time jobs. Another theme tackled by the book is the inequality between men and women whether the women were married, single, civilian or in the forces. If you want to know the reality behind those jolly wartime films, read this book. Not only does it give the facts in a readable, interesting way, it also includes the experiences of people who lived through the war, often told in their own words as well as accounts from Mass Observation, a study of the British population set up in 1936 and continued through out the war.