The wartime diaries of Walter Musto were recently discovered by his great-nephew in a family attic. Contained in a dusty pile of notebooks filled with neat handwriting are the intimate thoughts of a sixty-year-old civil servant living in Surrey during the Second World War. When Walter took up his diary on January 1st 1939, he was looking forward to retirement with his beloved wife Alice Mary and their ageing dog Nell, and spending more time in his garden. Walter was too old to fight, but he organized his ARP fire-watch unit and, spurred on by the cry of 'Dig for victory!', grew mountains of vegetables for the war effort. He also took up weaving and knitting scarves for the neighbourhood, but nothing gave him more pleasure than pottering in his greenhouse or sunbathing in the nude among his flowers, interrupted only by the wailing of an air-raid siren or plain bad weather.
In the spirit of THE DIARY OF A NOBODY, with more than an echo of DAD'S ARMY, Walter's idiosyncratic mix of social commentary and personal concerns captures the indomitable spirit that helped England endure the hardships of the Blitz. This charming diary is a welcome reminder that not all wars are fought on the front line.
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