Inside our finest hour: the hopes and fears of a nation fighting for survival

It was at this critical point that the Home Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Information was asked to compile daily reports on the state of popular morale for circulation within Whitehall.

Drawing on sources that included the Mass Observation social survey organisation and a network of contacts such as chief constables, postal censors, doctors, clergymen, trade unionists and publicans, the reports provided a unique view of the attitudes and behaviour of British people during what Churchill described as their "finest hour".

The daily reports, telephoned from each region to Whitehall between noon and 2.30pm each day except Sunday, were circulated to 100 people inside government.

They were eventually released to public archives in the 1970s and have been dipped into by researchers since, but now for the first time they appear in book form, edited by two academics from Edinburgh University's Centre for the Study of the Two World Wars. Each chronological set of reports is put into context of current events in the war.

Ordinary people's hopes, fears and everyday problems are detailed against a backdrop of national and international crisis. We can view them in the knowledge of what the outcome of the war was to be; the population of Britain at that time had no idea of the Allies would be victorious or if they would have to bow to the will of an invading force.

"At the beginning of the war, Whitehall was worried about pacifism and as time went on they feared that once air raids started the public

would turn against the war altogether," says historian Dr Paul Addison.

"With the conquest of Denmark, Norway and the thrust into the Low Countries, the Government here decided it needed a daily report from each region of Britain so that its propaganda messages could be calibrated according to the public mood.

"There was a genuine danger, it was felt, that some sort of defeatism might set in. But these Home Information Reports actually showed that people were far from defeatist. I think that was because there was a widespread feeling that being born British was to win first prize at school.

"This confidence and a sense of Britain's superiority went back to the days of Wellington and Nelson, and is reflected in some of the Home Intelligence reports, where people say 'we always lose the first battle but win the last'."

But, as a general rule of thumb, the whiter the collar the more

pessimistic the view. That is, the working class tended to be more consistently confident of the outcome of the war than the middle-class.

In general, women tended to take a dimmer view of events than men, not helped by the worry as the war went on that children who had been evacuated from cities to coastal towns like Bridlington still suffered air raids. Country dwellers seem to have stayed much more cheerful than town and city folk.

Dr Addison says that when the press got wind of the fact that the Ministry of Information was asking an army of covert "snoopers" to report on conversations overhead in the pub, on the bus or in the doctor's surgery, the mandarins of Whitehall dodged the issue and

focused instead on face-to-face opinion poll-style interviews which were already in the public domain.

One of the issues that most interested the Ministry of Information, led by Duff Cooper was that of rumours, which were pervasive and could have a widely unsettling influence on a population the government was trying to keep upbeat and supportive of the war effort.

Fear of fifth columnists led to tittle-tattle, like the tale of the Chief constable of York being "arrested as a German". Such whisperings were fed by the known fact of leading fascists and communists being

rounded up and interned at the time. Across the country there were legions of stories about German parachutists – more often than not "disguised as nuns".

As summer turned to autumn 1940, the Government felt reassured that the nation was holding up reasonably well, responding with a robust heart to the onslaught. Daily Home Intelligence reports were, accordingly, scaled back to weekly bulletins.

"The unique value of the reports is that they go way beyond opinion polls and deeper into criticisms of the conduct of the war and the country at the time, as well as reflecting feelings that many people shared to do with how the government was treating them in wartime. Generally people seem to have felt treated fairly.

"You do wonder whether politicians today would benefit from having a reporting system like this one. Perhaps Gordon Brown would have

done better if he'd know what was really going on inside people's heads."

n Listening to Britain edited by Paul Addison and Jeremy A Crang is published by Bodley Head, 18.99. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop call 0800 0153232 or go to www.yorkshirepost

bookshop.co.uk Postage costs 2.75.

YORKSHIRE AT WAR: 'THE PEOPLE AT THE TOP ARE WRONG'

Home Intelligence Reports put together from around this region by the HIR Leeds office and sent in daily bulletins to Whitehall

May 18, 1940

Morale on the whole fairly good, chiefly because everyone is working full-time. The new phase of the war and realisation of facts hitherto unfaced has stiffened resistance...

May 27 (following the evacuation of British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk. There were scattered air raids and the threat of invasion loomed)

Upset caused locally because sirens in North Riding are said to have gone off after bombs were dropped. Comment: "We're all right, but the people at the top are wrong." Jubilation in Hull at Fascist round up...

May 28

Growing feeling against aliens. Strong feeling against Belgian refugees. Requests for more vigorous bombing of Germany... Criticisms of odds against which our planes are fighting and of excessive number of news bulletins...

June 5

Huddersfield weavers threaten to strike owing to employment of Austrian-Czech worker. Wakefield Council dismissed COs (conscientious objectors) from all its services.

June 13

Strong anti-Chamberlain feeling on account of our apparent inability to help France... Still criticism about number of men who are not being drafted into war work. Criticism of the BBC for putting on a record about hanging the washing on the Siegfried Line immediately after the 6 o'clock news...

June 15 (the fall of Paris has in a sense brought slight relief of tension, but there is disquiet over the Government's preparedness for evacuation...)

"Why are so many not yet called up?"... "Why are there so many idle women?"... "What is wrong with the War Office?"

June 18 (Churchill told the Commons that the Battle of France was over and "I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin", expressing unshakeable confidence in the British Forces' ability to repel and defeat German invasion.)

(In Yorkshire) People demand that the whole nation should be armed. "We have half a million ex-servicemen in the country who should be armed at once..."

June 27

People believe our air raids on Germany are more effective than theirs on us... In spite of bombs on working class areas of Hull, there was no panic or evacuation.

July 6

Miners' leaders have had to appeal to young miners not to leave the

pits to join up...

July 20

Defensive stage of war has caused some apathy among younger people. Morale lowest in Bridlington and other towns where livelihood of many has disappeared

August 6

Morale is high... The Prime Minster's leadership is unchallenged but evidence suggests that there is no close identification between the people and the Government as a whole... Many reports of local dissatisfaction with the local leadership of the Home Guard...

August 20

Sheffield, Rotherham and Penistone received their first raid by bombers last night, and reports show confidence is unshaken...

August 27

Many comments from isolated rural areas in the Yorkshire Dales about inadequate black-out precautions, where lights can be seen for miles

August 31

A feeling of stalemate in the war is reported to be noticeable...

September 17 (During the ongoing bombardment of London) It is felt in some quarters that undue publicity has been given to the bombing of Buckingham Palace.