ABSTRACT

Offering the opportunity to ‘meet’ the diarists, this chapter first introduces the seven women and one man whose testimonies are the essence of this work. It presents their biographies, their familial, professional and social situations, their personal priorities, interests, feelings and specific difficulties as well as their food priorities and opinions, and recounts their individual narratives of their wartime experience. The second and third parts of the chapter present a group analysis of the diarists’ testimonies regarding their experience of the war at home and in their kitchen. It reveals the significant common points and divergences regarding their everyday practices, difficulties and perspectives. It provides information about their main issues and preoccupations regarding the Home Front and the Kitchen Front from the Blitz to celebrating Christmas in wartime.