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  • Audrey and Lee
    July 1941, the defiant image that characterised Audrey Withers’ wartime Vogue

    In September 1944 Vogue’s editor, Audrey Withers, published a four-page spread with two turns at the back of the magazine on a field hospital in France. It was not the first time that she had brought her readers face to face with the horrors of war, but it was the most powerful reminder to date of the scale of the operations of D-Day. On 6 June that year almost 7,000 ships and landing craft had transported 156,000 infantrymen to the beaches of Normandy. Over the next weeks a further 2,500,000 would land on the coast of France to continue the push towards Berlin and the elimination of the Nazi threat. It was natural that newspaper and magazine editors would be following the story closely.  But was it plausible that a glossy fashion magazine would want to take its readers into the heart of the war? After all, Vogue’s main fare was couture and culture, was it not?

    Fashion is Indestructible by Cecil Beaton, 1941

    British Vogue was called into being in the middle of the previous war. It was first published in London in September 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. Its pages were filled not only with fashion and features but also with articles on the war, including reports from Belgium on the plight of pregnant women giving birth close to the front line and the work of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in France. By 1939 Vogue was 23 years older and had gathered experience and influence. It was not surprising that in this new war the editor would want to help readers make sense of what was happening at home and abroad. During the Blitz, Audrey Withers, included a photograph of Vogue’s bomb-damaged offices and proudly told readers that the magazine, like its fellow Londoners, was being put to bed in a cellar. This was a reference to the cellar below No 1 New Bond Street where the Vogue staff retreated during the nightly air raids and where they carried on working as if it were entirely normal.

    Audrey Withers once described herself as an unlikely editor of Vogue and this comment stuck to her reputation for the next sixty years. In fact, she was an outstanding editor. She was brave, single-minded and always alive to the most important matters of the day for her readership. At 5’ 10” in her stocking feet she was tall for a woman of the time. She had been brought up in an eccentric household where from a very young age she had been invited to engage with her father’s literary and artistic friends. One of these was the artist, Paul Nash, with whom she conducted a 16-year correspondence in which she tried out all her ideas about the world on him, often eliciting affectionate and amusing responses. It was Nash who advised her on attending Somerville College, Oxford and who applauded her decision to switch from English to PPE in her second term. And it was Nash who comforted her when she was awarded a 2.1 and not a First as she had hoped. When she decided to leave her first job in a bookshop and apply to Vogue, it was Nash who congratulated her on the appointment.

    Audrey Withers by Clifford Coffin, 1947

    Audrey started as a subeditor, the lowliest job in the magazine, in 1931, and gradually rose through managing editor to Editor in September 1940. Her greatest champion when she made the step up to the top job was Condé Nast himself. He wrote to Harry Yoxall, the managing director of Condé Nast Publications in London, to say he would rather ‘have an editor who can edit than an editor who can mix with society.’ She may not have had the right social connections, but she had the intelligence and courage to stand up to the most difficult of Vogue contributors. She once took on Edward Molyneux who threatened to pull his advertisements if he did not have control over which photographs she used in the magazine She refused. Vogue’s independence was more important to her than Molyneux’s contribution to the magazine. Her wartime Vogue is a remarkable body of work that deals with all aspects of war, from clothes rationing and austerity, through the roles women took on both in civilian life and in the armed forces to the great battles being fought abroad. Her main photographer, Cecil Beaton, was removed to India and China in 1942 and she wrote ruefully of how much his absence would mean to her readers. However, another photographer was waiting in the wings, and this was Lee Miller.

    Self-portrait by Lee Miller ©www.Leemiller.co.uk

    Lee had begun her career in the 1920s as a model, appearing on the front cover of American Vogue in 1927. She was described as one of the most beautiful women in the world. Her life changed when she went to live in Paris in the early 1930s where she worked as Man Ray’s assistant. By the outbreak of the Second World War she had become a photographer with an exceptional eye and a singular ability to pick out the essence in a scene. This was to develop over the course of the Second World War. She arrived in London soon after the outbreak of war and applied to work for Vogue photographic studios in 1940. She worked as a fashion photographer for the magazine but also worked alongside features editor, Lesley Blanch, taking photographs of work done by the female armed services personnel.

    Women of the Auxiliary Territorial Army operate a searchlight battery at South Mimms by Lee Miller ©www.Leemiller.co.uk

    The opportunity to get into France – occupied France – was only possible because of her US citizenship and the press accreditation Audrey had helped to secure at the end of 1942. Lee’s visit to the field hospital in Normandy in August 1944 left her deeply moved. Her photographs are fresh, absorbing and searingly honest, as is her writing: ‘Another ambulance arrived from the right and litters were swiftly transferred to the parlour floor. The wounded were not “knights in shining armour” but dirty, dishevelled, stricken figures … uncomprehending. They arrived from the front-line Battalion Aid Station in lightly laid on field dressings, tourniquets, blood-soaked slings … some exhausted and lifeless.’ Audrey was delighted with Lee’s work. She wrote later:  

    ‘I made myself solely responsible for editing Lee’s precious articles. I used to begin by cutting whole paragraphs, then whole sentences, finally individual words. One by one to get it down. Always I tried to cut them in such a way that there would be the least possible loss of their impact. It was a painful business because it was all so good.’

    What was new here, in Vogue, was the quality not only of the photographs but also of the writing. Combined it made some of the most powerful photojournalism of Vogue’s war. Today Lee Miller is well-known. When Audrey Withers agreed to sponsor her application for press accreditation there was little to suppose this would turn out to be an extraordinary relationship. Audrey later described it as the greatest journalistic experience of her war.

    In October Lee had two features in Vogue, one on the battle for St Malo, where she had witnessed the use of Napalm, and the other from liberated Paris. She went on to produce articles on Operation Nordwind, a German offensive in Alsace, and then on the liberation of countries such as Liechtenstein. Her work became ever more intense as the war reached its conclusion. In April she entered the gates of Buchenwald and, just 12 hours after it was liberated, the concentration camp at Dachau. The photographs she sent back to London were so powerful and shocking that she sent an accompanying telegram ‘I IMPLORE YOU TO BELIEVE THAT THIS IS TRUE’. Audrey wrote that she had no difficulty in believing it was true: ‘The difficulty was, and still is, in trying to understand how it was possible for such horrors to be perpetrated not just in a fit of rage but systematically and carefully organised over years. To me, it was far more frightening than the existence of a Hitler or a Stalin and the fact that their crimes could not have been carried out without the willing cooperation of thousands who applied to work for the gulags and concentration camps just as if it was a job like any other.’

    Audrey’s courage failed her. She could not bring herself to publish the photographs from Buchenwald and Dachau in her Victory issue of the magazine in June 1945. History, and she herself, has judged her harshly for that but both overlook the fact that she included Lee’s article in full. And the article is so packed with rage it almost burns the pages it was published on:

    ‘My fine Baedeker tour of Germany includes many such places as Buchenwald which were not mentioned in my 1913 edition, and if there is a later one, I doubt if they were mentioned there, either, because no one in Germany has ever heard of a concentration camp, and I guess they didn’t want any tourist business either. Visitors took one- way tickets only, in any case, and if they lived long enough they had plenty of time to learn the places of interest, both historic and modern, by personal and practical experimentation. . . Much had already been cleared up by that time, that is, there were no warm bodies lying around, and all those likely to drop dead were in hospital. Everyone had had a meal or two and were being sick in consequence – because of shrunk stomachs and emotion. There is a diet arranged for them now, very similar to what they have been receiving in texture, although the soup now contains vegetables and meat extracts. I had seen what they had, that emergency day; and you’d hesitate to put it in your pig bucket.

    The 600 bodies stacked in the courtyard of the crematorium because they had run out of coal the last five days had been carted away until only a hundred were left; and the splotches of death from a wooden potato masher had been washed, because the place had to be disinfected; and the bodies on the whipping stalls were dummies instead of almost dead men who could feel but not react.’

    As Audrey was a wordsmith, she knew the power of Lee’s words and I think it is telling that she chose not to tone down the fury that they conveyed.

    Kate Winslet in LEE (Sky Cinema)

    The current film LEE, which is enjoying success worldwide, with Kate Winslet as Lee and Andrea Riseborough at Audrey, naturally focuses on Lee and her war photography. I just want to remind readers that without Audrey Withers, Lee’s work might never have gained the prominence in Vogue that it did. Lee was extraordinarily brave and brilliant but so too was her editor.

    With thanks to the Lee Miller Archives for the use of two images www.leemiller.co.uk

    Rosa Nostalgia – one of my favourites.

Julie’s Previous Blogs

  • Audrey and Lee
    In September 1944 Vogue’s editor, Audrey Withers, published a four-page spread with two turns at the back of the magazine on a field hospital in France. It was not the first time that she had brought her readers face to face with the horrors of war, but it was the most powerful reminder to date of the… Read more: Audrey and Lee
  • A Word in Your Ear
    Books appear in many different formats, shapes, sizes and technologies. This autumn British Vogue: the Biography of an Icon will be available in three formats: the hardback version, the Kindle version and the audiobook. This last intrigues me. It is a combination of my words, an actor’s voice and a producer’s interpretation of both. And it is… Read more: A Word in Your Ear
  • When Worlds Collide
    For the first six months of 2024, I was busy and taken up with two projects. The first was the centenary celebration of the disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine on Mount Everest on 8 June 1924. The second was the completion of my biography of British Vogue which was in the final stages of proofs,… Read more: When Worlds Collide
  • Judging a Book by its Cover
    British Vogue: The Biography of an Icon Part 3 The Cover Story This blog is the story of the jacket of my Vogue biography. The name ‘jacket’ raised quizzical smiles in the archives at Vogue House when I mentioned it. The immediate response of the archivists was to imagine Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent or Dior, while I was… Read more: Judging a Book by its Cover
  • Where the Magic Happens
    British Vogue: The Biography of an Icon Part 2 Editing and Production When I talk to students about editing, I see them roll their eyes and look away. ‘Editing,’ I say in my most enthusiastic voice, ‘is where the magic happens.’ This is usually greeted with a plaintive ‘but I hate re-reading what I’ve written.’  To… Read more: Where the Magic Happens
  • Once Upon A Time …
    British Vogue: the Biography of an Icon Part 1: Research and Writing Once the lightbulb moment has faded and the idea for a book begins to take shape, there comes the biggest task of all: research. For this book it has been huge but at the same time contained. The subject matter limited the amount of… Read more: Once Upon A Time …
  • Mallory & Irvine 1924-2024: commemorating the greatest mountaineering mystery of all time
    On Saturday 8 June 2024 over 600 people gathered at the Royal Geographical Society in London to mark the 100th anniversary of the disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine. Among the crowd were more than 30 members of the Mallory family, 8 Irvines and a good showing of Odells, Nortons, Somervells and Morshead (from the 1922… Read more: Mallory & Irvine 1924-2024: commemorating the greatest mountaineering mystery of all time
  • The Everest Mystery 100 years on: The ‘and Irvine’ of Mallory & Irvine
    Press Release11 April 2024The Everest Mystery 100 years on: The ‘and Irvine’ of Mallory & IrvineDid George Mallory and Andrew ‘Sandy’ Irvine reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain 29years before Hillary and Tenzing in 1953? Last seen by Captain Noel Odell on 8 June 1924 ‘goingstrong for the top’, Mallory and Irvine disappeared… Read more: The Everest Mystery 100 years on: The ‘and Irvine’ of Mallory & Irvine
  • Celebrating Women
    It is wonderful to celebrate the amazing achievements of extraordinary women on International Women’s Day. I’m very pleased to have heard so many female composers featured on radio 3 this morning, for example. And the newspapers are full of impressive profiles of women who have defied the odds, challenged misogyny or battled against fearsome prejudice.… Read more: Celebrating Women
  • A Blog for a Dog
    16 years ago, we decided to buy a dog. It would be a family pet but its owner, within the family, would be Richard. Tiggy was born in East Grinstead on 8 January 2007. She had a distinguished pedigree, beautiful markings and an enchanting black face. We picked her up when she was eight weeks… Read more: A Blog for a Dog
  • A Long Life Well Lived: Peter Summers 1929-2022
    This is the eulogy I gave for my father, Peter, at the Service of Thanksgiving we held for him in St Mary’s Church at Acton on 3 March 2022. I do not normally write about my immediate family but several people have asked me for a copy of the words I spoke so I thought… Read more: A Long Life Well Lived: Peter Summers 1929-2022
  • Pedal to Paris 2021 Day by Day
    Pedal to Paris 2021 Day One London to Dover 121.31 km (75.38 miles) 1,296m (4,252 feet) ascent 5.15 hours As we stood on the start line at Eltham Palace at 6:30 on a grey, chilly morning with mizzle, all the first-timers felt a sense of anxiety about whether we would make it to Paris at… Read more: Pedal to Paris 2021 Day by Day
  • Pedal to Paris 2021 – 25th Anniversary Ride
    The night before we left Eltham Palace on the first leg of the Pedal to Paris, I promised myself and the press team at the Royal British Legion that I would write a daily blog of the expedition. Naively I thought I would be able to get to the hotels and bash out an account… Read more: Pedal to Paris 2021 – 25th Anniversary Ride
  • Zero Hour for Pedal to Paris
    We’ve arrived at Eltham and are ready to leave for Paris tomorrow at 6:00am. From where I’m sitting now it all feels a bit overwhelming. Will we be able to cope with six hours a day in the saddle? Will we be the oldest cyclists? Probably not but up there with the others who have… Read more: Zero Hour for Pedal to Paris
  • Pedal to Paris
    Last August I finished the first draft of the manuscript that would become We Are The Legion: 100 Years of the Royal British Legion. Like the rest of the world, I had been locked up more or less since the middle of March and I was aching to have a project that would take me… Read more: Pedal to Paris
  • Remembering Helen McCrory
    I only met the magnificent Helen McCrory once, for an hour and a half, in a tiny room above a shop in Tottenham Court Road. But that meeting left an indelible impression on me and I will never forget the magic of her presence. I had been hired as the historical consultant on the film… Read more: Remembering Helen McCrory
  • Men on the Move: The Royal British Legion at 100
    I mentioned in a previous blog that one of the things that struck me about the Royal British Legion was the age of its membership around the time of its formation. Rather like the Women’s Institute when it was set up in 1915 with its members average age of 24 years old, the Legion’s profile… Read more: Men on the Move: The Royal British Legion at 100
  • The Duke of Edinburgh
    When the Duke of Edinburgh’s death was announced this morning, I found myself recalling a wonderful afternoon in Paris in 1992 when I had to show him around an exhibition. I was working for the Henry Moore Foundation at the time, and we were staging a huge show of his largest sculptures in the Jardins… Read more: The Duke of Edinburgh
  • Count Down to a Centenary
    Two months from now, on 15 May 2021, the Royal British Legion will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Born out of the ashes of the First World War, the Legion was the amalgamation of several ex-Services organisations, all fighting on behalf of those wounded, disabled, widowed or orphaned by war. Over the last century the Legion… Read more: Count Down to a Centenary
  • July 2016
    Welcome to my 18th newsletter. It’s been almost a year since I wrote one and this is mainly due to the fact that I have been working full-time on my next book. As I am about to go on holiday I thought it would be a good moment to assess a very turbulent year and… Read more: July 2016
  • The Mystery of Sandy Irvine
    Sandy aged 21 photographed for the Oxford University 1923 Blue Boat 96 years ago, today, 8th June 1924, my great uncle stepped into the pages of history. He was the nd’Irvine of the greatest mountaineering mystery of all times, the junior climbing partner of the great George Mallory. From the moment of their disappearance, somewhere… Read more: The Mystery of Sandy Irvine
  • The Cost of War
    Today is Friday 8 May 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe. Seventy-five years ago today the costliest war in history was finally drawing to a close, though its end would not come until 15 August 1945 when the Japanese Imperial Army surrendered unconditionally. Costliest in terms of lives –… Read more: The Cost of War
  • Coping in a Crisis
    Several people have asked me what Audrey Withers’ reaction to the current crisis would have been. I have thought about it a lot and it occurred to me that it might be interesting to compare 1940 and 2020. At the beginning of the Second World War the government closed down the country. It banned all… Read more: Coping in a Crisis
  • Audrey’s Miniature Wardrobe for Today’s World
    Now that Audrey is launched in Dressed for War she is public property. People have begun to contact me to tell me things about her which of course I wished I had known when I was writing the book. That always happens, though, so I have given up getting paranoid about missing out on every… Read more: Audrey’s Miniature Wardrobe for Today’s World
  • Setting Audrey Free
    There is a moment in a book’s life when it is no longer the personal, much-loved friend it was during research, writing and editing. This is when it goes to print and the powerful machine of publicity grinds into action. It might seem strange to express a book’s publication thus but it is something I… Read more: Setting Audrey Free
  • Hidden Secrets
    The build up to Remembrance Day always reminds me of the importance of memories. I’m talking here about national memories as much as personal ones. Two organisations most closely connected in the public’s imagination to memories in this context are the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who I worked for part-time from 2005 to 2015 and… Read more: Hidden Secrets
  • Announcing Audrey
    It is a very strange feeling when you hand over a proof of a book for the final time. This precious document that you have shared with an editor, a copy editor, a proof-reader and an indexer, is suddenly ready to be shared with others. There is a momentary feeling of loss that, for me… Read more: Announcing Audrey
  • Catapulting Audrey
    I was going to post this blog on 4 August after I had handed in the finished draft of my biography of Audrey Withers to my editor, Iain MacGregor, on 31 July, as per contract. However, on 25 April Iain asked whether I could bring the deadline forward by six weeks and deliver by mid-June.… Read more: Catapulting Audrey
  • Clearing the First Hurdle
    My very messy desk and one patient dog, Tiggy, who sits in her wine box behind the desk day in, day out, while I’m writing Well, as promised in my last blog, here I am on 4 April 2019 with the first draft of Audrey under my belt. I kept a note of the daily… Read more: Clearing the First Hurdle
  • Ready, Steady, Go
    There is something intensely exciting about starting to write a new book. I don’t mean starting from scratch, I mean that delicious moment when most of the research has been done and you feel it is time to pull a blank page to the fore, to pick up a pen (or keyboard) and write. Although… Read more: Ready, Steady, Go
  • Desperately Seeking Someone
    Researching non-fiction is a bit like being a police detective, I imagine. Sniffing out clues and piecing together a story that brings the facts to the fore in a convincing way. I also imagine it must be near impossible to put a perfect case together as life is not neat and linear. It is chaotic,… Read more: Desperately Seeking Someone
  • A Sense of Place
    Where were you born? I think it is fair to say that most people know their place of birth and probably the name of the hospital, maternity home, house name or number where they came into this world. Thinking about it, though, it is in some sense a strange question because chances are you have… Read more: A Sense of Place
  • This Game of Ghosts
    I spent a week in July teaching narrative non-fiction to a group of writers in Devon. It was a memorable week, not least because the weather was perfect and the Arvon Centre at Totleigh Barton is truly a magical spot. My fellow tutor and travel writer, Rory MacLean, enchanted us with his stories from his… Read more: This Game of Ghosts
  • Flower Power
    My friend Emma recently gave me a book about authors’ gardens. It is a beautiful publication that celebrates the gardens of great writers including Agatha Christie, John Ruskin, Beatrix Potter, Virginia Woolf and Rupert Brooke. She joked in her note to me that perhaps one day my garden would make it into such a book.… Read more: Flower Power
  • Agatha Christie and the Knox Commandments
    In March I had an email from a lady in Australia who I have been corresponding with over the past year or so. I suppose she is what I would describe as an e-friend but I feel that makes her sound unreal, which she most definitely is not. Whatever the description of our relationship, I… Read more: Agatha Christie and the Knox Commandments
  • Heil 15 März
    Heil 15 März, or Hail the fifteenth of March, was the cipher key used by SS signal regiments in the field in 1937. The Nazis entered Prague, taking control of Bohemia and Moravia on that day in 1939. Was it a coincidence that this date was already in the mind of the German high command… Read more: Heil 15 März
  • A Quiet Celebration of International Women’s Day
    I celebrate women every day of my writing life. I do it quietly and with respect, humour and awe. I write about ordinary women who do extraordinary things when faced with intractable problems or simply difficult situations. So while I am thrilled with all the fuss being made about International Women’s Day in this significant… Read more: A Quiet Celebration of International Women’s Day
  • The Joy of Language
    One of the great joys of being a writer is having the luxury to spend time playing with English. It is a magnificent language – rich, colourful, brimming with borrowed words from all over the linguistic world and infinitely versatile. It can also be exceptionally precise, although it does not have a word for my… Read more: The Joy of Language
  • Cultural History
    If you savour the concept of a British village in the middle of the twentieth century it is all too easy to think of a chocolate-box scene with cottages and houses surrounding a duckpond with a postman cycling by whistling while a farmer drives his sheep to market. So it may come as some surprise to… Read more: Cultural History
  • Gold, Frank-intentions and Murder
    By the summer of 1940 Britain stood alone on the edge of Europe with nothing to protect her apart from the Channel. This is an oft stated fact that has become entirely accepted by the majority of people. But is it true? Strictly speaking, yes. Geographically we stand on the edge of Europe and always… Read more: Gold, Frank-intentions and Murder
  • Welcome to Our Uninvited Guests
    The strange thing about writing a book is that it starts as a germ of an idea and ends by being a public object. It is a bit like having a baby who grows into a child and then is suddenly thrust out into the world entirely alone to be loved or hated without protection… Read more: Welcome to Our Uninvited Guests
  • Book Club Discussion Notes for Jambusters
    This book came about as a challenge from Julie’s editor to see if the Women’s Institute did anything interesting in the Second World War. As a result of the research she carried out over four years the conclusion she inevitably came to was that there a wealth of material. The year after the book was… Read more: Book Club Discussion Notes for Jambusters
  • Honour in Oxton: a Blue Plaque for Toosey
    This is the transcript of a speech I gave to mark the unveiling of a blue plaque at the gates of the house where my grandfather lived in the early twentieth century. The people of Merseyside voted him the person most deserving of recognition. There was a huge turnout of Toosey relatives as well as two former… Read more: Honour in Oxton: a Blue Plaque for Toosey
  • Pimms, Parasols and Passions
    Today is the first of five days of the Henley Royal Regatta, the rowing world’s equivalent of Wimbledon or Lords. It has been part of Britain’s summer social calendar since 1839 and it has been little altered over the last one and three quarter centuries. Two crews battle side by side along 2,112 metres of… Read more: Pimms, Parasols and Passions
  • Home Fires Season 2 Episode 6 The True Cost of War
    As the second season of Home Fires draws to its dramatic close I thought I would concentrate on a question I have spent a great deal of time working on: the true cost of war The cost of the war in human terms. Not numbers of killed or wounded but the impact it had on… Read more: Home Fires Season 2 Episode 6 The True Cost of War
  • Home Fires Season 2 Episode 5 Fur and Friction
    When I am asked what it is about the Second World War that fascinates me so much I reply that it is not war but people who excite my interest: how individuals cope in a time of emergency and how such events impact upon their later lives. One of the practical aspects that had to… Read more: Home Fires Season 2 Episode 5 Fur and Friction
  • Home Fires Season 2 Episode 4 Love and Sex in Times of War
    ‘If you put men and women together in close proximity in a danger shared, a mutual attraction is not only the inevitable result, it is what we should expect, and we should be very surprised and perturbed from a national point of view if it wasn’t.’ Thus wrote the English novelist, Barbara Cartland in 1945.… Read more: Home Fires Season 2 Episode 4 Love and Sex in Times of War
  • Home Fires Season 2 Episode 3 The Grey Market
    As episode 3 opens we find ourselves in mid-July 1940. The view from the USA looks bleak, as described in the New York Times that month. It is oft repeated but bears another repetition as it sums up so beautifully the parlous state of Britain at that moment in history: The folk, old towns of… Read more: Home Fires Season 2 Episode 3 The Grey Market
  • Home Fires Season 2 Episode 2 Hearts Aflame
    Episode 2 of Home Fires is packed full of love, loss, hope and pain but I do not intend to write anything in this blog that would give away the plot. Instead I thought it would be more fun to explore themes which were introduced in Episode 1. The first is that of divorce. It… Read more: Home Fires Season 2 Episode 2 Hearts Aflame
  • Home Fires Season 2 Episode 1
    Life on the Edge of Europe Three weeks after the evacuation at Dunkirk, France fell to the Germans. Amongst the Allies who had been fighting were Polish and Czechoslovakian forces who were at risk of captured and put into German Prisoner of War camps. Churchill realised that if this could be avoided it would mean… Read more: Home Fires Season 2 Episode 1
  • Europe – an historical perspective
    Wednesday 29 March 2017 is the most significant day in the life of the United Kingdom this century and possibly even of the last forty-four years. Some go as far as to say it represents the most momentous decision taken by this country since the end of the Second World War. Whatever side you are… Read more: Europe – an historical perspective
  • Celebrating Home Fires Season 2 on PBS
    Season 2 of Home Fires, the British drama series about life on the Home Front during the Second World War, is about to air again on PBS starting Sunday 2nd April. As the drama moves forward in time I thought it would be useful to give a little background to the historical period against which… Read more: Celebrating Home Fires Season 2 on PBS
  • A Touch of Class
    Part of my work as an author is to give lectures. I do two six week seasons in the autumn and spring all over the country, speaking about the social history of the Second World War among other topics. The ITV drama series HOME FIRES, inspired by my book Jambusters, is a favourite theme at… Read more: A Touch of Class
  • The Trouble with The Poppy
    I have been deeply frustrated and saddened by the, to me, farcical discussions between FIFA and the Football Association about the wearing of a poppy on a black armband on Armistice Day. Frankly no one has taken the trouble to look at the facts behind the poppy as a symbol of remembrance so here is… Read more: The Trouble with The Poppy
  • A World in Your Ear
    When I started researching and writing Jambusters seven years ago I had no idea that it would lead me on such an exciting adventure which culminated in ITV’s drama series Home Fires. None at all. However, what I knew from fairly early on was that there would be an audio CD. In 2014, Catriona Oliphant of award-winning… Read more: A World in Your Ear
  • Inspiring Women and Powerful Campaigners
    Sometimes people who ask me about my work are a little sniffy about the fact that I am a female historian writing about Second World War home front focusing on women and the Woman’s Institute at that. They mock at their peril. Woe betide them if they ever come face to face with an angry… Read more: Inspiring Women and Powerful Campaigners
  • Home Fires Women Don’t Go Quietly
    It is almost three weeks since Home Fires was dropped by ITV but the noise on social media shows no signs of quietening. There is an impressive cross-section of people who comment on Facebook and Twitter. The majority of supporters are women but there is a strong male presence which, when I assessed it, almost matches the drama… Read more: Home Fires Women Don’t Go Quietly
  • SAVE HOME FIRES!
    It is a week since my last blog about Home Fires and things have moved on dramatically. Since that phone call at 12:08 on Wednesday 11 May 2016 telling me that ITV had decided against commissioning a third series I have witnessed more activity on social media in a fortnight than I have ever experienced… Read more: SAVE HOME FIRES!
  • Home Fires Last Word
    I know that I am opening myself up to criticism by writing a blog about ITV’s decision to axe Home Fires after two series. However, I am determined to have my say. First I want to express my immense thanks to everyone who has shown support for the show on Twitter, Facebook and to me… Read more: Home Fires Last Word
  • HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 6 The True Cost of War
    As the second season of Home Fires draws to its dramatic close I thought I would concentrate on a question I have spent a great deal of time working on: the true cost of war. I do not mean in the sense of how much it cost the government to prosecute the Second World War… Read more: HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 6 The True Cost of War
  • HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 5 Fur, Fashion and Friction
    When I am asked what it is about the Second World War that fascinates me so much I reply that it is not war but people who excite my interest: how individuals cope in a time of emergency and how such events impact upon their later lives. One of the practical aspects that had to… Read more: HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 5 Fur, Fashion and Friction
  • HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 4 Sex and Love in Times of War
    ‘If you put men and women together in close proximity in a danger shared, a mutual attraction is not only the inevitable result, it is what we should expect, and we should be very surprised and perturbed from a national point of view if it wasn’t.’ Thus wrote novelist, Barbara Cartland in 1945. As a… Read more: HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 4 Sex and Love in Times of War
  • HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 3 the Grey Areas
    As episode 3 opens we find ourselves in mid-July 1940. The Channel Islands have fallen into German hands and Hitler has told his generals to plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom, codenamed Operation Sea Lion. In Great Paxford Stanley Farrow firmly believes the operation will succeed. He has increased his determination to safe-guard the… Read more: HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 3 the Grey Areas
  • HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 2 Hearts Aflame
    Episode 2 of Home Fires is packed full of love, loss, hope and pain but I do not intend to write anything in this blog that would give away the plot. Instead I thought it would be fun to explore two of the themes which were introduced in Episode 1. The first is that of… Read more: HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 2 Hearts Aflame
  • HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 1 Life on the Edge of Europe
      When we left Great Paxford at the end of series 1 the villagers all stood on the street, spell-bound by the sight of hundreds of aircraft flying south. The Phoney War had come to an end and the real war was about to begin. In fact, by the time those planes were flying south,… Read more: HOME FIRES Series 2 Episode 1 Life on the Edge of Europe
  • Home Fires Series Two
    Home Fires series 2 begins on Sunday 3rd April at 9pm on ITV. It is so exciting to be going back to Great Paxford to see what will happen to the characters that we were introduced to in 2015. Many people have asked me over the last few months whether I have had to write… Read more: Home Fires Series Two
  • Curves and Corsets
    Whenever I give a talk about wartime fashion I get a host of memories from audience members who recall parachute silk dresses, Make-Do-And-Mend shirts, thrice darned stockings and coats made from blankets. Some people remember the era with pleasure and tell me about how they loved their Liberty bodice or their Land Army uniform. Others… Read more: Curves and Corsets
  • Setting the Scene for HOME FIRES Episode 1
    The drama series, Home Fires, written and created by Simon Block, was inspired by my non-fiction book Jambusters (Home Fires in the USA) which looked at the activity of the Women’s Institutes on the British Home Front in the Second World War. Born in Canada in 1897, the Women’s Institute movement gave a voice to… Read more: Setting the Scene for HOME FIRES Episode 1
  • A Grand Prize
    I do not often have the opportunity to speak to someone who wants to make a serious difference to writers’ lives. Earlier this month, however, I had that opportunity and I wrote an article which I am reproducing here because I think the man behind the story is exceptional. Jeremy Mogford is a passionate man:… Read more: A Grand Prize
  • How to Make a Drama out of a Crisis: HOME FIRES Episode 6
    When I set out to write a history of the wartime activities of the Women’s Institute of England and Wales in 2009 I had no inkling that it would lead to a full-blown television drama series. None at all. So you can imagine that it has been a journey of many exciting twists and turns:… Read more: How to Make a Drama out of a Crisis: HOME FIRES Episode 6
  • The Value of Communication: For HOME FIRES Episode 5
    I’ve always been fascinated by communication. Not just in its literal form but in what it says about the human condition and how important it is to people to communicate and be communicated with. Throughout my many years of research into the history of the Second World War I have been struck by how much… Read more: The Value of Communication: For HOME FIRES Episode 5
  • Love and Sex in Times of War: for HOME FIRES Episode 4
    ‘ ‘If you put men and women together in close proximity in a danger shared, a mutual attraction is not only the inevitable result, it is what we should expect, and we should be very surprised and perturbed from a national point of view if it wasn’t.’ Thus wrote the English novelist, Barbara Cartland in… Read more: Love and Sex in Times of War: for HOME FIRES Episode 4
  • Home Fires Episode 3: Love, War and Housecoats
    By the end of the Second World War the British government had such minute control over every aspect of people’s lives that it governed the length of men’s socks and the amount of metal and rubber in women’s corsets. Even trouser turn-ups were banned and only six designs of underwear for women were permitted. Food… Read more: Home Fires Episode 3: Love, War and Housecoats
  • A little background for Home Fires Episode 3
    By the end of the Second World War the British government had such minute control over every aspect of people’s lives that it governed the length of men’s socks and the amount of metal and rubber in women’s corsets. Even trouser turn-ups were banned and only six designs of underwear for women were permitted. Food… Read more: A little background for Home Fires Episode 3
  • Setting the Scene for Home Fires Episode 2
    Episode 2 of Home Fires takes place against a strange time for Britons during the Second World War. Britain declared war against Germany on 3 September 1939, Canada a week later on 10 September. In Britain it was followed by a combination of mass paralysis and near mass panic. There was a very real fear… Read more: Setting the Scene for Home Fires Episode 2
  • Women’s Rights are Men’s Issues
    ‘Women’s Rights are Men’s Issues’: thus spoke the great Meryl Streep on the BBC’s Today programme shortly before 8 o’clock this morning. She was being interviewed about the film Suffragette in which she plays the role of Mrs Pankhurst. Carey Mulligan, who plays the lead role in the film, pointed out, with frustration, that it… Read more: Women’s Rights are Men’s Issues
  • A Young Festival
    The first Jersey Festival of Words took place this weekend and what a great success it was. This is a young festival, in every sense of the word. I do not mean that as an insult but rather as a compliment. First, I discovered that the only reason I was there was because the chairman’s… Read more: A Young Festival
  • Hidden Gems
    I love nothing better than objects that tell a story. A small but perfectly formed exhibition at the Priest’s House in Wimborne, Dorset, is full of the most delightful, exquisite objects that tell the story of 100 years of the WI. Actually, it tells the story of the WI in Britain but it starts with… Read more: Hidden Gems
  • September 2015
    Welcome to my 17th newsletter. A new and exciting chapter is opening, as Penguin USA publishes my original book Jambusters under a new title Home Fires. The drama Home Fires, starring Samantha Bond and Francesca Annis, will be shown on PBS Masterpiece starting on Sunday 4 October 2015 at 9pm EST.Contents © ITV-Home Fires© ITV-Home FiresJulie… Read more: September 2015
  • For the Love of Books
    Book festivals: love them or loathe them, they are part of an author’s life. The current best estimate of the number of literary festivals in the UK is 364. One for every day of the year except Christmas Day. I will have done twelve this year, that’s one a month, and by and large I… Read more: For the Love of Books
  • August 2015
    Welcome to my 17th newsletter. A new and exciting chapter is opening, as Penguin USA publishes my original book Jambusters under a new title Home Fires. The drama Home Fires, starring Samantha Bond and Francesca Annis, will be shown on PBS Masterpiece starting on Sunday 4 October 2015 at 9pm EST.Contents Jambusters & Home Fires Fashion… Read more: August 2015
  • Inspiring Women
    I was recently asked to write a piece about women who have inspired me over the years. I thought long and hard about it. Some stand-out familiar names sprang to mind: Katherine Grainger, the greatest living British oarswoman; Angela Merkel; Meryl Streep and so on. However, I came to the conclusion that it is ordinary… Read more: Inspiring Women
  • A Blithe Spirit – Peggy Sumner
    When an old person dies it is traditional to look back over their whole life, starting at the beginning and ending at the end. However, in the course of my work researching the social history of the Second World War I inevitably enter the latter part of people’s lives. The risk of talking to someone… Read more: A Blithe Spirit – Peggy Sumner
  • May 2015
    Welcome to my 16th newsletter. In my last letter I started by saying that I was looking forward to a quieter period of planning for the future. That spectacularly failed to happen and I have had the busiest spring of my career to date.Contents Julie in her cameo-role costume after filming for six hours in… Read more: May 2015
  • The Old and the New
    There is something rather extraordinary about the way history goes round in cycles. I’m not making a point about history repeating itself. That has been made often. I am talking about a cycle that I observed last week at the launch of Fashion on the Ration at the Imperial War Museum. When I was in… Read more: The Old and the New
  • December 2014
    Welcome to my 15th newsletter. After an autumn of intense activity on all fronts I am looking forward to a quieter period of planning for the future.Contents Jambusters Fashion on the Ration Mountain Matters Hotel Majestic Pen Thoughts Future Events Samantha Bond: to feature on the forthcoming Jambusters Audio CDJambusters There is nothing to report on… Read more: December 2014
  • A Word in Your Ear
    There is something deliciously private about the written word. That probably sounds slightly ridiculous, especially when my job is to publish and make public words that I write. But think about it for a second. The relationship between the reader and writer is intimate. It is one to one. I particularly feel that intimacy when… Read more: A Word in Your Ear
  • July 2014
    Welcome to my 14th newsletter and the first one for almost a year. The reason for this gap is that I was waiting to be allowed to announce the news that ITV has commissioned a six-part drama series inspired by Jambusters. This is definitely the most exciting development in my writing career to date.Contents Jambusters are… Read more: July 2014
  • June 2014
    Welcome to my 14th newsletter and the first one for almost a year. The reason for this gap is that I was waiting to be allowed to announce the news that ITV has commissioned a six-part drama series based on Jambusters. This is definitely the most exciting development in my writing career to date.Contents Jambusters are… Read more: June 2014
  • The Beauty of Knowledge
    There is something very special about working in a library. All too often I end up working in my office at home. It is lovely and I do know how lucky I am with my view over the spires of Oxford. However, going to a library is like going to a cathedral of learning. Last… Read more: The Beauty of Knowledge
  • Reconciliation
    Today, 16 August, is the date in 1945 when many in the Far Eastern prisoner of war camps were released. Most of the men had been POWs for 3 ½ years. Of the 60,000 who were forced to work on the notorious Thailand-Burma Railway, over 12,000 never returned. A shattering statistic. In other parts of… Read more: Reconciliation
  • August 2013
    Welcome to my 13th newsletter. I’m shocked to see that I have not sent a letter out since January of this year, although I have been using www.facebook.com/Jambusters1 to mention the odd thing that is going on with the book. This book came out on 28 February 2013 and has been studiously ignored by Radio 4, all… Read more: August 2013
  • Is Cooking an Art or a Science?
    The other day my youngest son said to me: ‘cooking is easy if you can read. Just follow the recipe.’ That got me thinking. Is cooking really as easy as that? Is it something we learn, we inherit from watching our parents in the kitchen, or what? Does one not need a bit of an… Read more: Is Cooking an Art or a Science?
  • Jambusters
    Now that this book is published, people are beginning to comment on the name, I just want to put the record straight and explain its origin.  The title came from my younger brother, Tim. I was at home in the kitchen with my family in November 2009, celebrating the fact that Simon & Schuster had… Read more: Jambusters
  • The Joys and Pitfalls of Oral History
    If someone in the pub tells you a story about their past, do you believe it wholly or do you think it might have been embellished a little to make it a cracking good yarn?  It probably depends on who is telling you the story and how far-fetched it seems to you, given your experience.… Read more: The Joys and Pitfalls of Oral History
  • January 2013
    Welcome to my 12th newsletter – the first of 2013. Happy New Year to you all. It is six months since I last wrote but there was little to report as I was in the final editing phase of my WI book and busy working on a long-term project with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.… Read more: January 2013
  • One Foot . . . And then Another
    As we walked away from Henley Royal Regatta yesterday, my friend, Fiona, and I mused that it had been a strange week.  The weather in the build-up to the regatta and during the five days of racing had proved testing, to put it mildly.  The stream was strong and the wind often even stronger, so… Read more: One Foot . . . And then Another
  • June 2012
    Welcome to my 11th newsletter. There is only one story to tell this quarter so I hope you will forgive me. I have to admit that when I received an email on Sunday 3 June at 11:08 with the subject ‘Invitation to private audience with the Dalai Lama, London, 20 June. The British in Tibet’,… Read more: June 2012
  • March 2012
    Welcome to my 10th newsletter, written on the warmest day of the year thus far. 20C in March certainly does not feel normal.Contents Sticking My Oar In Children’s Tales Zeitgeist Jam Tomorrow Pen Thoughts And Finally… Forthcoming Events Sticking My Oar In Rowing is usually relegated to ‘and finally’ in my newsletters but this quarter… Read more: March 2012
  • November 2011
    Welcome to my ninth newsletter, posted at the very end, I suspect, of the season of mellow fruitfulness. I can hardly remember a lovelier autumn and certainly the trees in my garden have put on an unrivalled display of beauty.Contents Mr Irvine laid to rest (for a while) The Warpath Leads to Woodstock E.E.K. Clowning… Read more: November 2011