A soldier in Bedfordshire, 1941-1942: the diary of Private Denis Argent, Royal Engineers

Denis Argent, a professional journalist, joined the British Army in 1940 at the age of 23.  He was already writing for Mass Observation, the innovative research organisation founded in 1937.

During most of his first two years in uniform, when he was billeted in Bedford and Luton, he kept a remarkably detailed and probing diary.  He wrote of street life and other aspects of the Home Front in Luton and Bedford, where the BBC’s Symphony Orchestra had relocated shortly before he arrived; daily military routine; bomb disposal; transport; women, sex and leisure; his political views and cultural interests (he loved music and was widely read); the crucial importance of leave to see his girlfriend; and his fellow conscientious objectors – he was in the Non-Combatant Corps, though he later chose to take up arms.

Denis Argent had a keen and observant reporter’s eye.  He was also highly attuned to the modernist intellectual culture of his time.   His is a wartime diary that is perceptive, colourful, wide-ranging, sometimes amusing, and very well written.