These Wonderful Rumours!: A Young Schoolteacher's Wartime Diaries 1939-194516.79
Author(s): May Smith
May Smith is twenty-four at the outbreak of World War Two; at night, the sirens wail, and the young men of the village leave to fight. But still, ordinary life goes on: May goes shopping, plays tennis, takes holidays and even falls in love - while recording it faithfully in her diary. 'May is simply a joy, a bright spark in dark times' The Times
General Information
- :
- : Little, Brown Book Group
- : Virago Press Ltd
- : 0.326
- : 01 August 2013
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 September 2013
- : books
Other Specifications
- : May Smith
- : Paperback
- : 913
- : 416
- : Integrated: 20, int b/w photos
More About The Product
'The People's War' comes to life in this wonderful diary of life on the Home Front during World War Two.
I grew to love every single detail. This is what it really must have been like to live through the war in Derbyshire on a teacher's salary with no car. I was fascinated -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham Spectator May Smith is simply a joy, a bright spark in dark times -- Iain Finlayson The Times Well written, witty and absorbing, Smith's chronicles give us an insight into the life and impact of the war in a small English village -- Nilima Marshall Yorkshire Evening Post
May Smith was born in 1914 in Swadlincote, South Derbyshire. She trained to be a teacher at Goldsmiths College, London. For many years she kept a diary, with a record of her life and her reading. After her first post at an all age elementary school in Swadlincote, in 1937 she moved to Springfield, a new Swadlincote junior school, where she taught during the Second World War. After marriage and children and a break from full-time teaching, she returned to Springfield, where she remained until her retirement in 1975. She died in 2004.