The recollections in this book help to answer such questions by evoking the reality of life on the home front during the war years. In their own words, ordinary men and women talk eloquently about the deprivations and suffering as well as the exhilaration and community spirit they experienced, whether they were in the city or countryside, in homes, schools and offices, or on the land. Don't You Know There's a War On? is a uniquely personal portrait of a nation at war, extensively illustrated with contemporary photographs, diaries, letters, poems, and other memorabilia belonging to the men and women whose wartime lives fill this absorbing book.