Housewife, 49

In 1937, Charles Madge and Tom Harrisson establish the Mass-Observation project to record the voices of ordinary people. The aim is to capture daily life, routines, and social attitudes as a living snapshot of society. The project lays the groundwork for volunteer observers to contribute diaries and reports.

In 1939, Mass-Observation invites people to send accounts of their lives, inviting a broad cross-section of society to participate. The call broadens the project beyond researchers to include everyday men and women. The aim is to chart life under wartime strain and national upheaval.

Nella Last, a housewife, becomes one of around 500 volunteers who respond to the invitation. She begins chronicling her daily life and thoughts in weekly diary submissions. Her diaries begin the voice the project seeks to capture.

Her diaries are headed 'Housewife, 49', reflecting her age when she started. The entries provide a window into domestic life, wartime scarcity, and family dynamics. The weekly format allows a continuous narrative to unfold over the years.

Throughout 1939–1945, the diaries document endurance through rationing, air raids, and upheaval, while also revealing a difficult marriage and personal isolation. Nella's voice blends practical housekeeping with reflections on resilience, morale, and hope. The diaries show how private life is shaped by public events.

In scenes from the program, staff members are seen reading Nella's letters and reacting with sympathy, sometimes moved by her honesty. Their responses illustrate how her accounts influence the team and underscore the project's aim to document genuine voices. The letters become a bridge between private life and the observers’ interpretive work.

Through wartime voluntary work, Nella transitions from a withdrawn housewife to a central figure in her neighborhood. She helps organize and participate in community relief efforts, reinforcing social cohesion. Her role expands as the diaries reflect growing leadership and responsibility.

The diary entries and program scenes depict a difficult marriage with a domineering husband, creating tension and spurring Nella to assert herself. Her evolving independence contrasts with the household authority she faces. The dynamic illustrates personal growth amid constraining circumstances.

Nella develops a close, sometimes strained friendship with Mrs Waite, the head of the local Women's Voluntary Service. The collaboration strengthens wartime relief efforts and provides a support network for Nella. Their relationship highlights how leadership and solidarity emerge in community life.

The diaries chart changing relationships with her sons, Arthur and Cliff, whose wartime experiences alter them. Cliff's experiences in combat shape his outlook and deepen the family’s strain. The narrative also hints that Cliff's sexuality is present, though not fully acknowledged by Nella.

Edited editions of her diaries are published as Nella Last's War, bringing her wartime voice to a wider audience. The editors frame the diaries as a social document of 1939–1945 Britain. The publication marks the transition from private diary to public historical source.

A new edition of Nella Last's War is released by Profile Books, reviving interest in the diaries for modern readers. The reissue underscores the diaries' ongoing relevance to family life during wartime.

Nella Last's Peace gathers diary entries from the immediate post-war years, showing how the wartime experience continues to shape her life. The book expands the narrative beyond the war years into peacetime adjustments and rebuilding.

A third volume, Nella Last in the 1950s: Further diaries of Housewife, 49, contains material not published in Nella Last's War. It offers a later window into her life and into mid-20th-century change.

Nella continued to write to Mass-Observation until her death in 1968, and her diaries—along with Mass-Observation's papers—are archived at the Mass-Observation Archive, The Keep, University of Sussex, Brighton. The archive preserves a crucial record of everyday life in mid-20th-century Britain.