A vivid journal that records the upheavals of running a grocery store in a Yorkshire town during the accountability years in the Second World War. Kathleen Hey spent the war years helping her sister and brother-in-law manage a grocery store in the town of Dewsbury. From July 1941 to July 1946, she kept a diary for the Mass-Observation project, capturing the thoughts and concerns of the people who used the shop. What makes Kathleen's narrative so lively and appealing is her direct writing. People seemed united ('Bert has painted the V on the shop door...', she writes), but there are many underlying tensions. The lack of food and the extreme difficulty in supplying it is a constant axis dominating the town's discussions, even more so than the danger of bombings and the war itself. Sometimes, developments take on a comic hue. The onion shortage causes outrage among her customers, and Kathleen writes, 'I think they believe we have secret onion nights and we use them all.' The Brooke Bond representative complains that tea need not be rationed if supply ships weren't filled with 'useless goods' like Corn Flakes, and there is a long saga about the non-arrival of Smedley peas. Through this chorus of voices, Kathleen stands out as a dynamic and charming woman who refuses to yield to doubt or sorrow, maintaining her sharp sense of humor even under the most challenging conditions. A vibrant addition to our records of the Second World War, the strength of her diary lies in the juxtaposition of the everyday with the extraordinary, the familiar with the universal, life in the countryside, and the upheavals of a nation during wartime.