DURING the Second World War, Home Intelligence, a unit of the Ministry of Information, compiled secret weekly reports to be circulated around Whitehall on the state of public morale. Paul Addison and Jeremy Crang have already published a complete set of these reports in two volumes, from May 1940 to September 1940, and September 1940 to June 1941.

In contrast, this final volume from June 1941 to December 1944 contains only a selection of the weekly reports; even so, the result is a considerable work, covering every aspect of wartime life as it affected ordinary people, although, with the entry of Russia and the United States into the war, the tide turned, and in later reports the nature of post-war society became of more immediate concern, as, for example, with the publication of the Beveridge report in 1942.

In his introduction, the author describes this Home Intelligence enterprise as resembling “an Evelyn Waugh novel with its cast of colourful and unconventional characters”, who, based at the University of London’s Senate House, were charged with gathering information not only from their own officers working in 13 designated regions of the UK, but also a great variety of other sources. “It was not a matter of snooping but of relating what people ‘thought’ and ‘said’.”

The author warns that the reports are opinion, not facts, and “tend to be critical rather than laudatory”. Despite further caveats, Crang argues that they remain “an invaluable resource for historians of the home front. . . They read like the war diary of the nation.” Largely owing to a looming post-war election, Home Intelligence was shut down at the end of 1944.

Seven hundred pages of reports make up the bulk of this book. Each section is preceded by a calendar of major events that year. The reports start with General Comments, the first item being General State of Confidence and Reaction to News. Reference is made particularly to the conduct of the war and political issues at home.

So, when, in February 1942, government fortunes had reached a low ebb, it is noted that some speculated that “Sir Stafford Cripps would be Prime Minister within a few months.”

This section regularly commented on Broadcasting and Presentation of News. Special Comments follow, which involve an extensive variety of issues, but in which food predominates. Either section can end with an entertaining account of current rumours.

Throughout, the steadfastness of the general population is clear, as in the comment of a housewife after the destruction of her house in the Canterbury raid of 31 October 1942: “I immediately thought of my week’s shopping and the cob nuts I had bought and said to my neighbour — ‘Jerry has cracked the nuts for me.’”

Both the researcher and those who prefer to dip in and out of this splendid volume will derive immense enjoyment from it, as well as respect for the ordinary men and women whose opinions it records.

Canon Anthony Phillips is a former headmaster of The King’s School, Canterbury.

Our People’s War: Home Intelligence reports and the monitoring of British morale, June 1941-December 1944
Jeremy Crang
Bloomsbury £20
(978-1-350-33502-8)
Church Times Bookshop £18