Wartime Diaries from 1942 and 1943

My mother and father both kept diaries during the war, while my father was stationed around the country with Air Sea Rescue. They were tiny books, and it was clearly a struggle to fit into the space a chronicle of life spent apart for so much of the time. The entries are very descriptive, even mundane, but at the same time a wonderful commentary on daily life in wartime.

In these little books, there are matching entries for every day during 1942 and 1943. On 1st January 2012, exactly 70 years since they were written, I will be publishing the diaries, one day at a time for two years, during which their lives will unfold during those difficult times. A time of sadness, of parting and of great hope for a better and peaceful future still so far off. As my mother wrote at the end of her entry on 1st January, "First day of another year of war. I wonder what I shall write in this book for the last day. Please God that Bill, Lyn and me may be together in peace and the war ended, no more partings."