Nella Last

Portrayed by Stacey Payne in A Wartime Diary (2017).

Portrayed by Victoria Wood in Housewife, 49 (2006).

Mother-in-law of Edith Last (born Edith Janet Picken, died 30 May 1985), wife of her son Arthur.

A first volume of her diary, Nella Last's War, was published in 1981 and was turned into a successful TV film adaptation (Housewife, 49) by the actress and comedian Victoria Wood in 2006.

Mother of Arthur Last (born Arthur Howard Last 1913, died 18 May 1979) and Clifford Last (born Frank Clifford Last, 13 December 1918, died 1991). Arthur Last occasionally acted on the BBC, he became a bookbinder and had his own bookshop, he was Ian Fleming's bookbinder for some time. Clifford Last emigrated to Australia in 1947 and went on to become a noted sculptor.

Nella Last was a Cumbrian housewife with a talent for writing who chronicled her life for the social research organisation, Mass Observation. Many other Mass Observation diaries, now held in the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex, ended with the conclusion of World War II. Nella, however, kept sending in her diaries to the Mass Observation office in London and continued writing until 1966 (she later died, in 1968). Her diary, consisting of around 12 million words, is one of the longest in the English language.

Grandmother of Peter Last (born 11 June 1948), Christopher Last (born 1951) and Jerry Last (born Jeremy Last, 1954).

As part of the government's wartime Mass Observation scheme, she kept a very detailed diary of the ways in which the Second World War affected her life as a housewife in the Lancashire ship-building town of Barrow-in-Furness, describing the changing role of women in 1940s Britain as a result of the war, her reactions to her sons' wartime service and injuries, and her love/hate relationship with her dour and depressed husband.

Nella's husband Will Last was born William Arthur S Last on 11 December 1887 and died on 19 May 1969, less than a year after she died.