These Wonderful Rumours!: A Young Schoolteacher's Wartime Diaries 1939-1945
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
These Wonderful Rumours!: A Young Schoolteacher's Wartime Diaries 1939-1945
By (Author) May Smith
Introduction by Juliet Gardiner
Little, Brown Book Group
Virago Press Ltd
10th September 2013
12th September 2013
United Kingdom
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Diaries, letters and journals
European history
942.51084092
Physical Properties
Paperback
416
Width 128mm, Height 197mm, Spine 27mm
284g
Description
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 TimesReviews
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 - Spectator - Ysenda Maxtone Graham
May Smith is simply a joy, a bright spark in dark times - The Times - Iain FinlaysonWell written, witty and absorbing, Smith's chronicles give us an insight into the life and impact of the war in a small English village - Yorkshire Evening Post - Nilima MarshallAuthor Bio
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.
