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Jonathan Moss (author), Emily Robinson (author), Jake Watts (author)

During Brexit, political questions were continually framed in emotional terms. The referendum was presented as a conflict between reason and resentment, fear and hope, heads and hearts. The Leave vote was interpreted as the triumph of passion over rationality, and its aftermath triggered concerns about the divisive impact of feelings on political culture. This book examines how these stories about feelings shaped public experiences and determined political possibilities.

Katie Walsh, University of Sussex

This article examines night-time bedroom soundscapes to highlight the significance of embodied geographies of home in understanding lived inequalities of housing. The article presents an analysis of responses (n =174) to the Mass Observation Project ‘Your Bedroom’ (2017) directive, in which UK panellists were asked about their bedrooms. The mundane, ordinary and frequent noise disturbance from neighbourhoods and neighbours is documented to contribute to an understanding of the sensory geographies of night-time domesticities. The article demonstrates that embodied experiences of night-time bedroom soundscapes, including sleep practices, are shaped by housing, including residential location, building type, and ownership/tenure. The article concludes by arguing that attention to soundscapes is significant in developing an embodied understanding of the inequalities of contemporary geographies of housing and home.

Edited by Richard Broad and Suzie Flemming

In September 1939, housewife and mother Nella Last began a diary whose entries, in their regularity, length and quality, have created a record of the Second World War which is powerful, fascinating and unique. When war broke out, Nella’s younger son joined the army while the rest of the family tried to adapt to civilian life. Writing each day for the Mass Observation project, Nella, a middle-aged housewife from the bombed town of Barrow, shows what people really felt during this time. This was the period in which she turned 50, saw her children leave home, and reviewed her life and her marriage – which she eventually compares to slavery. Her growing confidence as a result of her war work makes this a moving (though often comic) testimony, which, covering sex, death and fear of invasion, provides a new, unglamorised, female perspective on the war years.

Find more work about Nella here.

Compiled by Becky Brown

Throughout the Second World War hundreds of people kept diaries of their private daily lives as part of a groundbreaking national experiment. They were warehousemen and WRENs, soldiers and farmhands, housewives and journalists, united only by a desire to record the history they were living through.

For decades their words have been held in the Mass-Observation Archive, a time capsule of ordinary voices that might otherwise have been forgotten. These voices tell the human story behind the iconic events of those six years, of the individuals grappling with a world turned upside down. From panic-buying and competitively digging for victory to extraordinary acts of bravery, Blitz Spirit is a remarkable collection of real wartime experiences that represent the best and worst of human nature in the face of adversity.

Resonant, darkly funny and deeply moving, this new collection will reveal what it was like to live through a crisis of unprecedented proportions. A cacophony of hope, cynicism and resilience, Blitz Spirit celebrates ordinary lives – however small – and shines a light on the people we were, and the people we are now.