Table of Contents

Introduction: The Diarist and his Diary Bedfordshire in the 1930s and 1940s Part 1: Destination Bedford, September to October 1941 Part 2: Billeted in Luton, October to November 1941 Part 3: A Long Winter, November 1941 to March 1942 Part 4: Good Days, Bad Days, April to May 1942 Epilogue Appendix A: Conchie Culture Appendix B: The BBC Symphony Orchestra Moves to Bedford Appendix C: Mass Observation

About the Author

Patricia and Robert Malcolmson are social historians who have edited several diaries for publication, including for the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, A Soldier in Bedfordshire, 1941-1942: The Diary of Private Denis Argent, Royal Engineers (2009). Their most recent edited diaries are A Shop Assistant in Wartime: The Dewsbury Diary of Kathleen Hey, 1941-1945 (Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society, 2018) and A Vicar’s Wife of Oxford, 1938-1943: The Diary of Madge Martin (Oxfordshire Record Society, 2018).