In her vivid memoir For the Duration, Ashbee givves a candid, often humorous account of her experiences during World War II as she rose through the ranks in Britain's Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Joining shortly after the outbreak of the war in 1939, Ashbee began in the nerve center of the Royal Air Force's (RAF's) battle with the enemy, soon advanced to the intelligence department, and later served as an administrator at various RAF stations. She relates how she and other WAAFs coped with a war machine that desperately needed the help of women but whose all-male leadership did not quite know how to manage the sudden influx of females. Throughout her lively narrative she limns the impact of war on individuals and families from all classes and walks of life, both in and out of the military. As a radar teller, she tracked Rudolph Hess as he flew across the North Sea. As a writer and producer of original ""shows"" in her offduty hours, she brought forth amateur theatricals at several RAF stations, dispelling much of the incredible monotony and boredom of duty in remote outposts. Ashbee's vitality infuses this memoir as it moves from the ""phony"" war and the Battle of Britain, to intelligence and duties as an officer to, at last, the victory celebrations in London.

One of the most powerful stories of the Arts and Crafts movement: a perceptive biography of one woman's valiant life in a vanished era of emerging feminism and bold socialist thought.

C. R. Ashbee was, some would say, the key man in the British Arts and Crafts movement during the early decades of the twentieth century. Regarded as heir to William Morris in political belief and design reform, Ashbee (and his Guild of Handicraft) gained international fame in his own time and remains a legend today. While much has been written about him, little has been said of his wife. Now Felicity Ashbee breaks the silence in a compelling book about her mother.

The book depicts Janet Ashbee as a gifted woman of emotional warmth, strength, and unconventionality, all of which enhanced her husband's work. An accomplished writer and thinker in her own right, Janet Ashbee's life revolved around great historic issues that still resonate today: the socially conscious Arts and Crafts movement, the role of women in contemporary affairs, and embattled ethnic relationships in the Middle East -- not to mention marriage and sexual orientation, predicated upon her husband's vibrant and well-known homosexuality.

A book of rare insight and significance, Janet Ashbee sheds welcome light on the Arts and Crafts movement and on women in oft-romanticized Victorian and Edwardian British culture.