This is an account of the drama in three acts which was played on Britain's home front in the first year of the second world war. Act One saw the nation keyed up for instant horrors. Act Two saw it fussing and fumbling, wondering what had gone wrong. Act Three saw it roused by a great blow between the eyes. This book is about the home front alone. It is not concerned with the political direction of the war or with the strategy of defense. It deals with that topsy-turvy period when Hoxton and Bridgeton spilled out into the shocked countryside ; when business firms withdrew into moated castles and civil servants threw the invalids out of the spa hotels ; when every day the law invented strange new offenses and created new tribunals ; when the nation suffered most of the discomforts of war without any of its excitements. The object has been to show some of the attitudes that were struck, the controversies that were sparked, the steps that were taken to keep business and hobbies going, the outbreaks of lunacy and commonsense and the efforts of ordinary men and women to cope with situations hilarious in their gravity. --from the Introduction.