The Ordinary Voices That Helped Record Wartime Britain’s Hidden Feelings

The Ordinary Voices That Helped Record Wartime Britain’s Hidden Feelings

Over the past week or so, I have been finding out a little about life on the home front during the Second World War. Today I want to discover a bit about Mass Observation, and I honestly had not realised just how unusual and important it was. It began before the war and it tried to record the everyday thoughts, feelings, habits, and experiences of people across Britain. History often focuses on politicians, royalty, or military leaders and Mass Observation wanted to understand what normal people actually thought about the world. I really love the idea of it being a kind of diary of the whole country.

Mass Observation officially began in 1937. It was created by Tom Harrisson, Charles Madge, and Humphrey Jennings. Harrisson was an anthropologist and an explorer, Madge was a poet and journalist, and Jennings was a filmmaker and artist. They believed that the lives of ordinary people mattered and they deserved to be recorded. Britain during the 1930s was influenced by political tension, economic worries, unemployment, and growing fears about another war developing in Europe. Many people were feeling ignored by those in power, and Mass Observation hoped to create what they called “an anthropology of ourselves.”

Volunteers from across Britain agreed to take part. Thousands of people eventually became involved. Some kept diaries, some answered detailed questionnaires, and others wrote honestly about their daily lives, relationships, fears, opinions, shopping habits, or reactions to major events. Observers also went out into towns, pubs, factories, and streets to secretly record conversations and behaviour. It may sound intrusive, but the organisers believed they were capturing real life exactly as it happened.

One of the most important moments for the Mass Observation was during the Second World War. Britain was facing bombing raids, rationing, evacuation and grief. The government wanted to keep an eye on the public’s morale, they were worried about panic or falling support for the war effort. Reports that were produced by Mass Observation were sometimes shared with officials and ministries who wanted to know how people were coping. In many ways it gave ordinary people a voice, albeit anonymously.

One of the best-known Mass Observation writers was Nella Last. She was a housewife from Barrow-in-Furness who began writing for the project in 1939. At first, she struggled with loneliness, poor health, and an unhappy marriage, but her diary gradually became a way for her to express the feelings she had been hiding for years. During the war she volunteered with groups including the Women’s Voluntary Service and gained a sense of confidence and independence. Her diaries were honest and emotional. They described everything she experienced from rationing and air raids to the tensions in her family. She even wrote about the happy times in her life. Today her writings are considered some of the most valuable personal accounts of everyday life in wartime Britain.

For all the volunteers writing the diaries, the experience must have felt very personal. Some of the participants wrote about their loneliness during air raids, just like Nella did. They also expressed that they missed their loved ones who were serving abroad. They explained their exhaustion from factory work and sometimes of their concerns and fears about not surviving the war or of an invasion. Others described moments of joy and happiness, of humour, friendship, and of community spirit. Reading their words today makes the war feel more human and real because we hear about not just the headlines but also the emotions of the people behind them. Maybe some of the participants felt some comfort knowing that somebody was listening to them.

By the late 1940s and early 1950s, the original project had begun to decline. Britain was changing after the war, and funding became more difficult. The original Mass Observation effectively ended in the early 1950s, although some work continued afterwards in a smaller way. Then in 1981, a new version called the Mass Observation Project began at the University of Sussex, encouraging people again to write about their ordinary life.

Today, the original diaries, surveys, and reports are preserved mainly at the University of Sussex. Historians, writers, and filmmakers still use them to get a better understanding of how ordinary people lived and felt during some of the most difficult times of the twentieth century. Without Mass Observation, many personal voices and emotions from that era may have been completely lost to history.

Tomorrow I want to learn more about Nella Last as person.

If you had lived during the 1930s or Second World War, do you think you would have written honestly in one of those diaries?

Image info: 

Nella and her son, Cliff.