Fighting on the Home Front by Kate Adie is subtitled The Legacy of Women in World War One. I found it to be a really interesting read and although I’ve read numerous books about the war I learned a lot from this one. For instance, I had no idea that towards the end of the war there were thousands of women more or less right on the front lines. They had been recruited to free men up for fighting and they were doing all the cooking, cleaning, driving tasks and such – which men had been doing until then.
Did you know that there was an English woman in the Serbian Army? Her name was Flora Sandes and she was a sergeant major, she had started off as a St John Ambulance volunteer but begged to be allowed to fight when she saw that she was needed.
Women’s lives were changed radically but it was always known that the work they were doing was ‘only for the duration’ and they would have to go back to their domestic duties after the war. Although women got the vote due mainly to their war efforts, in some ways things went backwards so far that we still haven’t recovered the ground. It’s only now that women’s football is beginning to be taken seriously but during the war there were lots of female teams playing, due to the lack of men.
This book has interesting photos as well as lots of new (to me anyway) information. It’s a must read for anyone interested in the social history of the time. Kate Adie often adds in bits about what was happening within her own family in Sunderland at particular times during the war. Somehow those bits didn’t sit well within the book, especially as the Adie family was always described as her adoptive family, as if she was defending herself from any possible accusations of them not being her ‘real’ family. One mention of adoption would have been enough – not that I think it was necessary at all.
I believe that this book featured as a BBC Book at Bedtime.
You can find BBC podcasts about the role of women in World war 1 here.
I am currently dipping in and out of this. It really is an interesting book and I was lucky enough to hear Kate Adie talk about it back in July. I don’t even think I blogged about it!! She really brought it all to life as did her tv programme on it as well.
Jo,
No I don’t think you did blog about that. You are so lucky to be able to get to so many events like that. I had to bash on with the book fairly quickly as it’s from the library but it would be perfect for dipping into.
How interesting It sounds! I think I’ll be on the lookout for it! I have a photo of my grandmother in uniform during WW1. She is standing beside an ambulance, so I presume she is the driver….. But where is she? That’s the mystery! I never knew her and my mother would not say much about her. Could she have been in France? I wish I knew!
That photo of grandmother… You can see it on my blog, evelyn186.blogspot.com on 12 Feb. 2008
Evee,
Thanks for that, I hopped over to see your grandmother, it’s sickening that she must have had such an interesting time and you don’t know anything about it. There must be some way of finding out, she’ll be in records somewhere as she’s in uniform. I was wondering if you are related to the famous Elsie Inglis?
Not related to Elsie as far as I know! Well we could be connected I suppose from way way back but probably another family got the appellation English (or just someone not from Scotland – could be Irish!)and Inglis being the Scots word for English it stuck to that family too!
evee,
I just thought you might be as you are connected to some well known Edinburgh folks!