Draft:Lorna Beatrice Lloyd
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| Submission declined on 17 July 2025 by Avgeekamfot (talk). This submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources. Reliable sources are required so that information can be verified. If you need help with referencing, please see Referencing for beginners and Citing sources.
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How to improve a draft
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This draft has been resubmitted and is currently awaiting re-review. |  |
| Submission declined on 30 April 2025 by Greenman (talk). This submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources. Reliable sources are required so that information can be verified. If you need help with referencing, please see Referencing for beginners and Citing sources. Declined by Greenman 4 months ago. | |
Comment: Quite a few unsourced items. Also, external links in article text should be removed. Avgeekamfot (talk) 11:40, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- Comment: Large portions are unsourced, especially relating to the subject herself, rather than her work.Please also merge duplicate sources. Greenman (talk) 09:58, 30 April 2025 (UTC)
Lorna Beatrice Lloyd | |
|---|---|
| Born | 7 January 1914 Filton, Bristol |
| Died | 2 February 1942 (aged 28) Malvern Link, Worcestershire, UK |
| Cause of death | Heart failure and cancer |
| Burial place | Malvern Wells Cemetery, Worcestershire, UK |
| Citizenship | British |
| Education | Sheffield High School for Girls, Girton College, University of Cambridge |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Known for | Diary of the war |
| Parents |
|
Lorna Beatrice Lloyd (1914–1942) was a British Second World War diarist, known primarily for her posthumous Diary of the war.[1] The diary was first published in a Blipfoto journal[2] in 2019, and then in a nationally-acclaimed eight episode podcast series[3] in 2022. A selection of Lloyd's poetry, some of which is included in four bonus episodes of the podcast series[3], has also been published[4]. Lloyd's life and work is commemorated at Malvern Museum, where the war diary is displayed.[5]
Early life, education, and career
[edit]The preface to the volume of poetry[4] gives the fullest account of the short life of Lorna Beatrice Lloyd. This biography covers her privileged middle class family background and childhood between 1914 and 1933 in the UK towns of Bristol, Stirling, Ilford, and Sheffield.
Academically-gifted, Lloyd left Sheffield High School in 1933 to study at Girton College, Cambridge where she read for a BA in English in 1936[6]. However, since the University of Cambridge did not award degrees to women in the 1930s,[7] Lloyd did not graduate. Issues of the Girton Review published between 1933 and 1936, and accessible from the reading room of the Archive and Special Collections[8] at Girton College, make frequent references to Lloyd as an active member of the college Dramatic Society as a producer, designer and actor, and a member of the Debating Society.
The archive also holds records of Lloyd's first job as a part-time English mistress at the County High School, Stourbridge (1936-37), and second as assistant English mistress at the Royal School, Bath (c1937-39).
Lloyd gave up teaching in 1939 due to ill health[4].
The writing of the Diary of the war
[edit]At the start of the Second World War in September 1939, 25 year old Lloyd was living in Malvern, Worcestershire in the English Midlands[1]. Between 1st September 1939 and 4th January 1941, Lloyd composed 106 diary entries offering commentary on the progress of the war[1]. The activities reported in the diary include Lloyd's direct experience of the reception of child evacuees, the issue of ration books, and the billeting of armed personnel in civilians' houses[1]. Lloyd also reflects on war time incidents and events reported in the print and broadcast news such as the evacuation of Dunkirk (26th May to 4th June 1940), the Battle of Britain (July to October 1940), the sinking of the City of Benares (17th September 1940) and the bombing of Coventry (14th November 1940)[1].
Illness and death
[edit]Towards the end of the summary of Lloyd's life in the preface to the volume of her poetry[4], it is noted that she attended Gloucester Infirmary for medical treatment between 1939 and 1942. It is also explained in this biography that Lloyd's condition deteriorated in mid-1940, and that she died on 2nd February 1942, a month after her 28th birthday. The cause of death was certified as 'acute cardiac dilatation, paroxysmal tachycardia and intrathoracic neoplasm' i.e. heart failure and cancer.
Diary of the war and its online publication in two formats
[edit]In 2019, the Lloyd family donated[9] Lloyd's war diary to the Malvern Museum. Immediately prior to this, each page was photographed for posting to a Blipfoto journal where the date of each diary entry would correspond with the same date 80 years earlier[1]. The LornaL Blipfoto journal[2] was active between 31st August 1939 and 11th January 2021.
In 2022 a team of staff and students from Edinburgh Napier University's School of Computing produced an eight episode podcast series based on the Diary of the war[3] supplemented by contemporaneous news reports, including original BBC broadcasts. At the same time, bonus episodes of some of Lloyd's poems were made, and a volume of her poetry published[4]. This work was funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and supported by the BBC, the British Library, and Malvern Museum.
The podcast series[3] achieved national recognition as a runner-up for the British Records Association's Janette Harley Award in 2022.[10] In the same year, the podcast series was catalogued for inclusion in the University of Oxford's Their finest hour archive[11].
In May 2025, as part of the 80th anniversary commemorations of VE Day, The Conversation published an article entitled VE Day: how personal first-hand accounts help keep everyday narratives of wartime Britain alive'[12]. With direct reference to the testimony of Lloyd, the piece emphasises the value of audio recordings in preserving and conveying the experiences witnessed by ordinary citizens during the Second World War.
Academic research related to the Diary of the war
[edit]Following the release of the podcast series of the Diary of the war[3], Edinburgh Napier University staff conducted research into audience engagement with the two digitised versions of Lloyd's work. Their findings were published in volume 58, issue 2 of the British Records Association's journal Archives[13]. In the article[1] the authors note that listeners considered the podcast series[3] as a flexible form of entertainment that prompts learning and generates emotional responses to the diary content. Online text and images of the same content in the LornaL Blipfoto journal[2] were found to offer greater affordances for access to contextual information to 'explain' the archive. These also prompt a stronger sense of authenticity because the audience has sight of source material in the images on the Blipfoto platform.
Key to these findings is the additional content used to 'frame' the archive. In the case of the podcast series[3], this is (mainly) print and broadcast news stories that tie to the diary entries (including BBC sound files); with the text and images are ephemera related to the diarist (e.g. family photos, art work), an emerging storyline of family history, a narrative on the construction of the history, footnotes on the diarist's commentary (e.g. explanations to references, links to further information), and audience comments.
The authors conclude that these findings draw attention to the role of editorial and curatorial effort in promoting audience engagement with digitised archive collections. In particular they raise questions over the extent to which an archive should be augmented with additional content or left to 'speak for itself' - without diminishing the authenticity of the source material, nor the entertainment value, offered by digitised formats.
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g Ryan, Bruce; Hall, Hazel; Wilson, Marianne; McGregor, Iain (2023). "Podcasting the archive: an evaluation of audience engagement with a narrative non-fiction podcast series". Archives. 58 (2): 123-153. doi:10.3828/archives.2024.3.
- ^ a b c "LornaL's latest photos | Blipfoto".
- ^ a b c d e f g Platform, Platform to. "Diary of the war | Podcast on RSS.com". RSS.com. Retrieved 2025-09-09.
- ^ a b c d e Lloyd, Lorna (2022). Ryan, Bruce; Hall, Hall (eds.). Selected poems. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Napier University. ISBN 978-1-3999-2417-7.
- ^ "Lorna Lloyd's Diary of the war". 25 September 2025.
- ^ Girton College Cambridge Archive and Special Collections. Lorna Lloyd roll file. GCAS 2/3/1/65.
- ^ "The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge". 14 October 2019.
- ^ "Girton College archive and special collections". Retrieved 9 September 2025.
- ^ "Diary of the war 1939-1941". malvernmuseum.co.uk. Malvern Museum of Local History. Retrieved 15 July 2025.
- ^ "Winner of the 2022 Janette Harley Prize announced".
- ^ "Their finest hour". theirfinesthour.english.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-09-09.
- ^ Hall, Hazel (7 May 2025). Wright, Jane (ed.). "VE Day: how personal first-hand accounts help keep everyday narratives of wartime Britain alive". The Conversation. doi:10.64628/AB.h6d6dpw6h.
- ^ "Archives: the journal of the British Records Association". 6 December 2024. ISSN 2516-8975.