Nella Last in the 1950s: Further diaries of Housewife, 49 Book

'I can never understand how the scribbles of such an ordinary person leading a shut-in dull life can possibly have value'. So wrote Nella Last in her diary on 2 September 1949. Sixty years on tens of thousands of people have read and enjoyed the first two volumes of her diaries written during World War II and its aftermath as part of the Mass Observation project and the basis for BAFTA-winning drama "Housewife 49" starring Victoria Wood. This third compelling volume sees Nella now in her sixties writing of what ordinary people felt during those years of growing prosperity in a flourishing and modernising Britain. Her diary offers a detailed moving and humorous narrative of the changing experiences of ordinary people at a time that shaped the society we live in today. It is an account that's full of surprises as we learn more about her relationship with 'my husband' (never 'Will') and her fears of nuclear war. Outwardly Nella's life was commonplace; but behind this mask were a lively mind and a persistent pen. As David Kynaston said on Radio 4 she 'will come to be seen as one of the major twentieth century English diarists'.