A Woman at War : The Forgotten South African Second World War Diary

A forgotten World War II diary detailing the lives of a South African family inextricably linked to the war has been made into a book. Frances Daphne, the mother of four World War II combatants, including a distinguished pilot, a sailor and a WAAF, kept a wartime diary detailing her family's day-to-day struggles during the war from 1939 until 1945. 

A Woman at War : The Forgotten South African Second World War Diary, was edited by Laura Taylor, who is the mother of Matthew and Daniel Daphne who are in turn the great grandchildren of Frances Daphne, the author of the diary . Taylor found the diaries unpublished for 80 years, in an old trunk when she had to sift through the scant remaining possession of her boy's great aunt, Ursula Daphne. Having a great love for history as well as an Honour's degree in the subject, she included many photos from family albums and decided to add footnotes and other short chapters to keep readers abreast of context and history.

South African Historian, Professor Andrew Manson, reviewed the book and said the following:"Taylor has done a sterling job in making available and editing the wartime diary of Frances Daphne. Spanning the entire period of the Second World War, it shows how intensely the conflict was followed by people in even this remote farming community in the Eastern Cape.