THE 1940s HOUSE by Juliet Gardiner. Published in hardback by Channel 4 Books, £20.

Take one 21st-century family, spirit them back to the 1940s to endure rationing and air raid warnings, then watch the results.

These are all detailed in this book, based on the eponymous Channel 4 series.

It follows the trials and tribulations of the Hymers family, who volunteered to live for nine weeks in the early 1940s, reliving the same conditions as millions of Britons during the Second World War.

The results are fascinating. Michael, his wife Lyn and children Kirstie, Ben and Thomas, left their Otley home in West Yorkshire for 17 Braemar Gardens, West Wickham, in war-time Kent.

They seem to have had a memorable experience. Coping with rationing was perhaps the toughest challenge - they scrimped and saved, eking out rations and experimenting with strange ingredients, just like 1940s housewives.

Their experiences reveal how people managed during those dark days of conflict. Certainly, the Hymers seemed amazed at the amount of hard work required for day-to-day existence.

Indeed, they took away from the experiment a greater understanding of just what it was like to live in Hitler's shadow, a lesson that radiates from this book.

Most salient of all, the Hymers' struggles provide an insight into the trials undergone by the nation in the 1940s. As Lyn says, the family wanted to pay tribute to everyone who endured that terrible war.