Little Book: A Nurse’s Diary of the Desert War, 1940 - 1943

’Little book, how shall I feel when I read through your pages in the years to come, maybe when I am a grandmother. Many are the things which I have not put down, many are the thoughts which I must keep locked away in my heart.’ In 1940 Marian Davies embarked on the dangerous voyage from her home in South Wales to Egypt, to nurse soldiers fighting in the deserts of North Africa. She would not return home until late 1943. Her diaries turn one of World War II’s lesser known conflicts technicolour. Far from home, Marian navigates her life as a young woman serving in the British Army; an account which is a stark reminder of the colossal impact of war, and that there is always the opportunity for shared humanity amidst conflict. Little Book, is a combination of Marian’s original diaries and photographs from her life serving as a nurse in the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service of the British Army and contemporary research conducted by her granddaughter, Kitty Cartwright, which charts the course of her wartime journey from Wales, to Egypt, Kenya, Ghana and beyond.