A great "slice of life" read. The photographs are from the collection of the Tom Harrison Mass-Observation Archive at Sussex University (UK). Also in the Sussex U. archives are diaries kept by people recruited to do so for the Mass-Observation project.

"'Mass-Observation' was begun in 1937 by Tom Harrisson, Charles Madge, and Humphrey Jennings, their object being the anthropological study of the British way of life. In Bolton, Harrisson organized a team of observers to go out and record everything they saw: how many men in a pub wore bowler hats, the behaviour of people at war memorials, the changing of shop-window displays. Humphrey Spender took now famous photographs, some of which are reproduced in this book. Meanwhile Madge and Jennings set up a 'National Panel' of volunteers who kept a detailed account of their own lives."

"[this] ...selection from material gathered provides us with fascinating glimpses of Britain in the 1930s and 1940s. The researchers covered the great 'events' of the period - mass unemployment, the blitz, Churchill's defeat in 1945. But they also produced lively descriptions of ordinary life, from the intimacies of marriage to the activities of holiday-makers in Blackpool."

For MORE INFO.: http://www.massobs.org.uk/ -

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/speccoll/collection_introductions/massobs.html

http://www.boltonmuseums.org.uk/HTML/spender/history_mass_observation.html -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-Observation