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Millions Like Us

Women's Lives in the Second World War

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Millions Like Us

By: Virginia Nicholson
Narrated by: Patience Tomlinson, Annie Aldington, Rachel Bavidge, Julie Maisey, Georgina Sutton
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About this listen

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Virginia Nicholson's Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War. A special multi-voice recording featuring five actresses that bring to life the hundreds of personal testimonies, diary entries and books that make up this superb study. Read by Patience Tomlinson, Annie Aldington, Rachel Bavidge, Julie Maisey and Georgina Sutton.

In 1942 Cora Johnston is grieving over the death of her young husband, torpedoed in the Atlantic; Aileen Morris is intercepting Luftwaffe communications during the siege of Malta - and Clara Milburn, whose son was captured after Dunkirk, is waiting, and waiting ...

We tend to see the Second World War as a man's war, featuring Spitfire crews and brave deeds on the Normandy beaches. But in conditions of "Total War" millions of women - in the Services and on the Home Front - demonstrated that they were cleverer, more broad-minded and altogether more complex than anyone had ever guessed.

In Millions Like Us Virginia Nicholson tells the story of the women's war, through a host of individual women's experiences. She tells how they loved, suffered, laughed, grieved and dared; how they re-made their world in peacetime. And how they would never be the same again ...

©2011 Virginia Nicholson (P)2012 Penguin Audio
Military War

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Critic reviews

"Passionate, fascinating, profoundly sympathetic." (Artemis Cooper, Evening Standard)

"A deeply moving account of female courage both at home and overseas during the six brutal years of war...the joy of Virginia Nicholson's book is the way she has plaited scores of individual stories into a richly textured account of the many forms that female courage can take. This story belongs to us all." (Kathryn Hughes, The Mail On Sunday)

"An acclaimed account of this period... a rich seam of social history." (Cassandra Jardine, Daily Telegraph)

All stars
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AS A GRANED CHILD OF THAT GENARATION. IT WAS STILL NOT TALK ABOUT WILL THEY WERE AROUND.SO IT WAS GREAT TO LISEN TO THOES HOW WERE ABLE TO GIVE THERE STORY AND BE PAST ON SO THAT WE CAN UNDER STAND WHY THEY WERE AT TIMES SAY THIS GENARATION ADD IT BETTER AND ON A PLAIT. THANK'S TO ALL.
SORRY FOR SPEELING THIS IS WHY I GET BOOKS READ

HELPS THE GENARATIONS THAT HAVE COME AFTER

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This is the second book I have listened to about women's experiences of the war. This is so much better, so many real experiences from diary entries. It is even a little too gruesome in parts! I really enjoyed the insight of the narration and that there was follow up of the stories post war. There is also an interesting analysis of the feminism issue, very revealing and surprising. If I was still teaching this would be a great resource.

Absolutely Fascinating

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I liked it all as it
moved..to. different experiences all-over thr country and how people coped

the history

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What a great and varied number of stories from women during the war - some names you will have heard off, but the majority just everyday folk getting on with their lives, sometimes in heartbreaking circumstances. They worked hard and played hard too, war was an opportunity for some of them to learn skills and take on work they would not have been considered for in peacetime. Many inevitably found it hard to return to their lives as they had been before the war.

One small comment would be that it would have been ok to have had a male actor to voice Churchill! - you wouldnt have broken the spirit of the book!

Women who kept the wheels turning..........

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I liked the way the stories thread through the war and post-war periods.
My nan was in the army in anti-aircraft and she used to tell us about it as a child. After she died, I wish I had listened more carefully!, this book fills in a lot of the gaps and answers a lot of the questions I would ask her now as an adult. It makes you feel like you were there, down to mundane things like the weather and lack of nylons. My Granny was a housewife, I didn't realise what they went through having thought they were not particularly active in the war, how wrong could I have been!

The story teller is good and keeps you interested in a very (perhaps slightly over-long) narrative. The voices of the women are sometimes a tad ridiculous, overdone and fake accents, but this made me smile actually and does not detract at all, hence high rating.

Great late night listening and thoroughly enjoyed.

Interesting book

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