Emerging out of the 1940-1941 London Blitz, the drama of these two short works by Inez Holden, a novel and a memoir, comes from the courage and endurance of ordinary people met in the factories, streets and lodging houses of a city under bombardment.

The great mid-century British author's memoir of wartime life "It Was Different At The Time" (initially meant to be a collaboration with George Orwell, who features as a character along with other writers of the period) is given here with Holden's novella "Night Shift", which follows factory workers across a week of nights.