Mass Observation (MO) was launched in the 1930s as a social-research initiative. Its first phase ended in 1949 and the second began in 1981. Ordinary English people were asked to write about their everyday lives, thus providing an invaluable source for social historians. Hinton chooses seven contributors to MO’s archive of autobiographical writing, all of them born before the second World War and all of whose lives “spanned years of tumultuous social change”. The seven are four women and three men: the wife of a small businessman, a teacher, a social worker, an RAF wife, a mechanic, a lorry driver and a banker. Some issues central to their lives were the sexual revolution of the 1960s and its consequences for marriage, a new kind of political activism, the decline of traditional religion, women’s liberation, a sense of national decline, the growth of a multicultural society, the rise of Thatcherism and the growth of individualism. There are some powerful, shocking, heart-wrenching and inspiring stories here, illustrating the theme that “human beings – obstinate, intelligent, creative – make meaningful lives out of whatever fate chooses to throw at them”.
