Home fires
Subtitle: the story of the Women's Institute in the Second World War
By: Julie Summers
Contributors: Summers, Julie
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 349
ISBN-13: 9780143108450
Subjects: National Federation of Women's Institutes; World War, 1939-1945; Women
Other titles: Home fires :; Home fires (Television program : 2015-2016)
Description: "Soon to be a PBS Masterpiece series starring Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey) and Francesca Annis (Cranford). Away from the frontlines of World War II, in towns and villages across Great Britain, ordinary women were playing a vital role in their country's war effort. As members of the Women's Institute, an organization with a presence in a third of Britain's villages, they ran canteens and knitted garments for troops, collected tons of rosehips and other herbs to replace medicines that couldn't be imported, and advised the government on issues ranging from evacuee housing to children's health to postwar reconstruction. But they are best known for making jam: from produce they grew on every available scrap of land, they produced twelve million pounds of jam and preserves to feed a hungry nation. Home Fires, Julie Summers's fascinating social history of the Women's Institute during the war (when its members included the future Queen Elizabeth II along with her mother and grandmother), provides the remarkable and inspiring true story behind the upcoming PBS Masterpiece series that will be sure to delight fans of Call the Midwife and Foyle's War. Through archival material and interviews with current and former Women's Institute members, Home Fires gives us an intimate look at life on the home front during World War II"--
Notes: "First published as Jambusters in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2013"--Title-page verso.

"As seen on Masterpiece, PBS"--Cover.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [311]-328) and index.
Table of contents: title: Let the sunshine stream in; title: The gathering storm; title: The piper's call; title: Coupon culture; title: Digging for victory; title: Boil and bubble, toil and trouble; title: Knit one purl one; title: Gaiety, song, and dance; title: Building for the future; title: A final word.