Product Description

A Yorkshire family experience World War II by living in a semi-detached house in Kent and having a committee of historical experts, a nutritionist and veterans of the Home Front, controlling how they live. They can withdraw foods, requisition their car, and even limit how much bath water they use. The accompanying book is a diary of the family's experience, and also a comprehensive account of the Blitz years in Britain. It includes many firsthand accounts from people around the country. It is a fascinating account of a time in British history when the whole country was involved in the war effort, and people's lives were transformed by the Home Front.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #198027 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
World War II was dubbed "the people's war". In the words of Winston Churchill it was "a war of unknown warriors (in which) the whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women and children". From children to great-grandparents, everyone was expected to muck in and make do. How then would a modern-day family cope with the hardships and inconveniences forced upon people in Britain between 1939 and 1945? That was the idea behind the Channel 4 series The 1940s House. Having volunteered to swap home comforts for the home front, the Hymers were evacuated to a property of the period and exposed to the harsh realities of wartime living: a bygone world of powdered eggs, gas masks, ration books, blackouts and air raids.

"There were many occasions when I thought, 'I can't do this, too much is being expected of me'," wrote Lynn Hymer in her diary. "But then I'd stop and say, 'Hang on a minute, I am here for a wartime experience'. In the war the women didn't say they couldn't do it, they just got on with it".

Far from being a lightweight behind-the-scenes TV companion The 1940s House offers a serious insight into what day-to-day family life was really like during wartime. By featuring photographs from the Imperial War Museum and including correspondence of home-front veterans, historian and author Juliet Gardiner documents the reality along with the reconstruction. A beautifully produced book that pays tribute to the millions of ordinary people who lived through extraordinary times. --Christopher Kelly

Review
We would not take kindly today to advice on how to put out an incendiary bomb in the hall, keep an eye out for enemy agents, eat prunes to keep "regular" and make do with mock bananas and whale meat. Such was household life in World War II. Much along the best-selling lines of The 1900 House, Channel 4 will recreate in a four-part series and the accompanying book what it was like for a family to experience the war, with all the controls exercised by the government over food rationing, the "dig for victory" appeal, mobilisation of women, even the propaganda for women to "stay lovely for him" despite make do and mend, clothing coupons and exhaustion. Books were in short supply. Sixty years on, amid a glut of titles, this one carries an appeal which extends beyond nostalgia, being a living piece of history, evocatively illustrated and concluding with an appendix on "how to research your house's war."

Books based on television series can be a disaster, relying too much on the reader having seen the programmes and often lazily relying on a straightforward transcription from the scripts. This is an exception, telling the story of how the 21st-century Hymers family of Otley were suddenly transposed to Braemer Gardens, West Wickham, and the world of 1940s, wartime rations, the blackout and the nine o'clock news. It not only records the Hymers's reaction to all this - Mr Hymers's complete lack of understanding of the rationing system, Mrs Hymers's failure to hide the house lights from marauding German bombers, their sons' reaction to a tiny sweet ration and the necessity to remember your gas mask - but it really recreates the world of the 1940s - a world so different from our own that those who did not live through it might be forgiven for wondering how people managed to survive. A small committee of dedicated (and perhaps some sadistic) imitation civil servants made quite sure that the family suffered everything a normal family would have endured in 1942, from powdered eggs to limited bath water. While describing the privations, the book also highlights the simple delights - a picnic, a quiet ciggy in the kitchen (by the end of the war half the women in England were regular smokers), or managing to get your hands on a reasonably glamorous dress or pair of stockings. Extracts from reminiscences of the Home Front and masses of beautifully reproduced archive material add depth to what is an absorbing and endlessly interesting volume. (Kirkus UK)

Customer Reviews

Facinating look at the homefront from a 2000 perspective
I gobbled up the book. It describes both life on the wartime homefront of West Wickham and life as an ordinary 21st century family recreating the experience for nine weeks. I felt drawn in the wake of the family's coping experiences. There are little details that about coping without a 'frig, about the family's feelings about stumbling into their air-raid shelter, about the experiences of their neighbours who actually lived through the war. Extremely moving, esp. for a Canuck born after the war. We didn't deal with much of the horror here, the uncertainty, yes, so it's a revelation. I really appreciated the commitment the family had to fully participating in the difficulties of the war experience both for their education and as a tribute to the women who went through the real thing.

No exactly what I hoped for.....
I loved the series on tv, and was really looking forward to reading this book to learn more about the familys experiences, but unfortunately the bulk of this book is about the war and Churchill in general - rather than the Hymers social experiment. Its still a very interesting and informative read, but I wanted to see more of the Hymers day-to-day experiences which weren't in the all to brief tv series. Most of the info in this book is available in any 'Wartime London' history book. A little disappointing.

History in the making...
This is a wonderful companion to the TV series that I have become obsessed with. I watch it over and over and never get tired of it. Being born just after D-Day, and a history major in college, I am fascinated with anything about WWII. The book is filled with background on the homefront and could have had more on the Hymers, but all in all I think this was the perfect family and the perfect experiment.