ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1990 I began looking at the diaries held in the Mass Observation Archive, University of Sussex Library. My interest focused mainly on those written by women and I became immersed in a spectrum of extracts that were as diverse and unpredictable as they could be. I was fascinated. Here, I felt, was a history written by women in a way that gave the reader an insight and a sense of authenticity that was quite unique. Women were defining their lives. Few saw themselves as writers, that was not their aim. They had been asked to relate the details of everyday life, and so, perhaps for the first time, their daily routines and chores took on, publicly, the importance they held privately.
