About the Author

Becky Brown is an anthologist, editor and literary agent. Her eclectic work centres around a fascination with forgotten voices and hidden stories. She lives in Frome. The Mass-Observation Archive is one of Britain's richest collections of material about everyday life. It contains papers generated by the original Mass-Observation social research organisation (from 1937 to the early 1950s) and newer material collected continuously since 1981. At its core is an unrivalled series of "ordinary" people's diaries, most of which were kept during the Second World War. The Archive is in the care of the University of Sussex.

Reviews

'What happened, when did it happen, why did it happen - are all questions historians deal with daily as they look backwards at events. But the glory of the Mass Observation archive is that the writers are looking forward. Is Churchill a hero or a villain? Are the Germans capable of bombing London? And who is that woman - or is it a man? - being propositioned in the blackout? The Mass Observation diarists record it all as they see it, and history is made anew in front of our eyes.' - Judith Flanders, author of The Making of Home'A priceless collation and an insight like nothing else. Never more timely or poignant, these writers have no time for cliches or platitudes, only an urgency to tell it like it is. Humour, despair, confusion, hope - humanity laid bare, unique and universal.' - Simon Garfield, Editor of Our Hidden Lives and We Are at War