Voices of French women in wartime London: ‘Books that record great events do not explain how ordinary people of a great city live during momentous days’

The primary aim of this contribution is to seek the traces of those not foremost in the plethora of texts published during and after the Second World War concerning key figures and political and military events of the period. Its focus is a range of French women living in wartime London. It takes in, therefore, the experiences and writings of female citizens of London's well-established ‘French Colony’, alongside those of some of the women belonging to the Free French Corps des Volontaires Françaises who joined de Gaulle in the city in 1940 and shortly afterwards. By working and thinking beyond established historical subjects and sources the aim is also, following Margaret Atack's own commitments and approaches, to construct other archives and different historical knowledge structures.