This volume of diary entries covering the years 1939-45 might equally be entitled The Bloomsbury Set's War, for Frances Partridge spent the entire six years well away from anything that might be described as a front apart, of course, from the elegant facade of Ham Spray House in Wiltshire, where she lived with her husband Ralph, their young son and a plethora of brilliant conversationalists - Stracheys, Bells, Desmond MacCarthys et al - who dropped in to tea or to shelter from a passing doodle bug. Both Frances and Ralph Partridge were conscientious objectors who followed the progress of the war in minute detail, and most of this diary is spent sighing and moaning about the events of the day, between visits to her hairdresser in London and playing string quartets with friends. A typical agonised fireside exchange reads: F: "Yes, perhaps it's time we tried to pull up out mental socks and do a little thinking."
R: "That's the worst of war. One doesn't want to do any thinking." Dahling! One sympathises, absolutely.
