Mrs. Tim Carries On is the second in the Mrs. Tim series, continued after a long break at the beginning of World War II. The narrator, Hester Christie, begins the novel as diary entries after her husband leaves for the front. Her husband’s Scottish regiment is stationed in a small Scottish town, and at first Hester feels she should leave but decides she is of more use there.
The diary is of everyday life that doesn’t seem to be that different from before the war except for war work and worry about loved ones. One of the young officers in her husband’s regiment asks her to invite Pinkie Bradshaw to stay, and Hester is confused by this because she remembers Pinkie as a girl with braces. But Pinkie turns out to be a tall and beautiful seventeen-year-old, practical, too, as she lets one young man after another know they’re just going to be friends. Pinkie stays, and Hester is happy to have her.
After Dunkirk, Tim’s regiment reappears, but without Tim, which leads to some anxiety. Otherwise, the book is calm, pushing the stiff upper lip approach with a few scares, sometimes funny, and entertaining.
whatmeread 
It’s always interesting to get a view of the Home Front written as it was happening – they sometimes read a bit like propaganda, perhaps, but I think that stiff upper lip thing is probably truer than the drama of a lot of historical fiction set at the time.
Yes, and she was living on an army base, after all.
It also seemed like they had no trouble getting food. I don’t know if that was because it was early in the war or because they were on the base.
I don’t think there were food shortages in the early days, not until the Battle of Atlantic got properly underway in late 1940/1941, so that would be after Dunkirk and probably after this book was written.
OK. I was trying to remember what was going on in the Thirkell books at the same time. It seemed like they complained about food shortages throughout and after the war, but maybe it was actually later.
The shortages of some things definitely went on for years after the war. My older sister claimed that she could remember rationing and she wasn’t born until 1951. I suspect it was probably rationing of sweets that she remembered!
Yes, that was clear from the Thirkell series.