Which housewife, who had three of her war-time diaries published between 1981-2010, was Housewife, 49 based on?
Nella Last Nella Last (née Nellie Lord; 4 October 1889 – 22 June 1968) was a housewife who lived in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, England. She wrote a diary for the Mass Observation Archive from 1939 until 1966 making it one of the most substantial diaries held by M-O. An edited version of the two million words or so she wrote during World War II was originally published in 1981 as "Nella Last's War: A Mother's Diary, 1939-45" and republished as "Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of 'Housewife 49" in 2006. A second volume of her diaries, "Nella Last's Peace: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife 49", was published in October 2008, and a third volume "Nella Last in the 1950s" appeared in October 2010.
Few Eggs and No Oranges Few Eggs and No Oranges, the diary of Vere Hodgson, recounts life on the home front during the Second World War. It was first published in 1976 by Dennis Dobson and again in 1999 by Persephone Books. Described by the author as "a diary showing how unimportant people in London and Birmingham lived through the war years", the published diaries begin on 25 June 1940, the morning after the first air raid on London.