WOMEN IN THE WAR

Sub-titled 'The Last Heroines of Britain's Greatest Generation', and with a foreword by Baroness Betty Boothroyd, the book tells the stories of 10 of the last surviving female members of Britain's greatest generation. Whether flying Spitfires to the front line, code breaking at Bletchley Park, plotting the Battle of the Atlantic, or working with Churchill, each of these women made crucial contributions to the conflict overseas, and helped to buttress the home front. Centenarian Christian Lamb, who served as a plotter in the Battle of the Atlantic, agrees that amid the horror and tragedy of the conflict, there were positive outcomes for her sex. Women were spared a great deal of burden she explains, and there was a certain amount of freedom to be had. Catherine Drummond, now aged 99, had volunteered as a wireless operator. Some of the ten women came from backgrounds of grinding poverty, while others enjoyed gilded childhoods before joining the war effort. Joy Hunter, now aged 95, had served as a secretary in Winston Churchill in the subterranean Cabinet War Rooms beneath Whitehall. 102-year-old Jaye Edwards had an airfield in Yorkshire as the base from which she worked as a pilot delivering Spitfires to the front line. The range of military roles that women were permitted to perform expanded as the war dragged on. And the war was in some ways a great level between classes as women of all social backgrounds were drafted in to help. The book opens with a story of Margaret Turner born 18th of May 1923, who, at the age of 16 when the war broke out, volunteered as a nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment and witnessed a lot in just the first 12 months. With a reporter's eye for detail, Lucy Fisher artfully weaves together interviews and wartime diaries and letters in a vivid oral history. 318 pages in paperback with 16 pages of colour and archive photographs of the women as youngsters and at the age they were interviewed.