Book sysopsis

The second world war could not have been won without the bravery and selflessness of women on the Home Front. Women like Kathleen Johnstone.

This first-hand story of one extraordinary but unheralded member of Britain’s ‘Greatest Generation’ brings home with extraordinary lucidity and compassion the realities of wartime Lancashire.

In 1943, Kathleen, then thirty, was a nurse-in-training at the Blackburn Royal Infirmary. For the next three years she kept a meticulous diary of her day-to-day existence, leaving behind a vivid record of the real-time concerns of a busy, thoughtful woman on the frontline of the war at home.

Kathleen’s days were never the same. She writes in clear and lively prose about life in the hospital: of her fellow nurses, her patients, about death and dying, and the progress of the war as wounded soldiers returned from Normandy in the summer of 1944. She muses on being working class, wartime austerity, and her anxiety about examinations. Here too are dances, Americans and a POW boyfriend in Germany. Kathleen’s observations are witty, wry and astute – but above all relatable, even today.

Poignant and engrossing, Kathleen Johnstone’s tale of trauma, romance and friendship will leave a lasting impression.

My review

This book is in the form of a nurse’s diary. Kathleen Johnstone takes us on a real journey through a very difficult time in history. I liked the images included in the book so I could see what she looked like and the places she described.

Diaries are usually an insight into someone’s inner most thoughts. This is no different and it is a wonderful way to see into someone’s life in the past. I really enjoyed this book and I do not read many fact books at all.

I am always interested in what life was like in that era and Kathleen has a great way of writing and it feels you are chatting to an old friend.

Disclaimer – Thank you to the publisher for my copy of this book for my honest review.