Quotes from Norman Longmate

Is it, one wonders, only nostalgia that makes the music of the popular songs of that time seem more tuneful, the words more comprehensible, the feeling behind them more genuine than of any since? Certainly the dance music of the war years was enjoyed by all age groups, and respectable middle-aged citizens were not ashamed to be caught humming the hit tunes of the moment in those years when 'popular' music was truly popular.

We now know that in life no obstacle can block, it can only impede; that tiredness is an incident not a finality.

The motto of the Housewives Service, attributed to Saint Augustine, was 'A little thing is but a little thing but faithfulness in little things is a very great thing'.

One A.F.S. man wrote bluntly: 'Everybody loots . . . The A.R.P. Wardens, Demolition Men . . . the Police.

After lying uncollected for weeks the whole heap of broken bicycles, dented petrol cans, and the rest, was taken back to the same dump where, I suspect, it remains to this day.

One result of the book boom was the growth of new publishers, who could use any paper they could find—they often advertised for 'free' supplies—and were not rationed to a fraction of their pre-war consumption. Lacking 'back lists' they specialised in new books and the public found it bewildering that new titles should constantly be published while textbooks and classics remained unobtainable.