1942 CHURCHILL'S DARKEST HOUR

If 1940 was the year in which Winston Churchill's reputation was forged, 1942 was the one in which it was almost destroyed. Taylor Downing chronicles a terrible period for the prime minister - both on the battlefield and in the court of public opinion

- Taylor Downing

On Saturday 14 February 1942, Japanese forces advanced to a point just a few miles from the city of Singapore. But in a corner shop in the Yorkshire town of Dewsbury, the conversation was about events much closer to home. Two days earlier, three large German warships, the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen, had sailed up the English Channel and passed through the Strait of Dover in broad daylight. It was the one topic every customer in the Yorkshire grocery store wanted to talk about. "What have they been doing to let them ships escape? They've made fools of us, haven't they?" exclaimed one woman.

The fact that Britannia no longer seemed to rule the waves - could not even stop German warships from passing within a few miles of the white cliffs - caused indignation. “By gosh, it's time we bucked up, what with one thing and another - there's only the Russians doing owt," commented one male customer. “They wouldn't have let them slip, you can bet." Meanwhile, a woman complained that "it happened under our noses”.

These words were noted by the sales assistant, who was keeping a diary for Mass Observation, the social research project that recorded everyday comments by people across the land. Such remarks, plus other data, were used to provide regular assessments of morale for the Home Intelligence unit of the Ministry of Information. Today, Mass Observation records offer a unique insight into the concerns and attitudes of British people throughout a tumultuous year.