Description
Book SynopsisIn the spring of 1939, with the Second World War looming, two determined twenty-four-year-olds, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, decided to open a marriage bureau. They found a tiny office on London's Bond Street and set about the delicate business of match-making. Drawing on the bureau's extensive archives, Penrose Halson - who many years later found herself the proprietor of the bureau - tells their story, and those of their clients. We meet a remarkable cross-section of British society in the 1940s: gents with a 'merry twinkle', potential fifth-columnists, nervous spinsters, isolated farmers seeking 'a nice quiet affekshunate girl' and girls looking 'exactly' like Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh, all desperately longing to find 'The One'. And thanks to Heather and Mary, they almost always did just that.
A riveting glimpse of life and love during and after the war, Marriages Are Made in Bond Street is a heart-warming, touching and thoroughly absorbing account of a world gone by.
Trade ReviewThe makers of
Call The Midwife need look no further for their next television project. * Daily Mail *
I thought this was going to be a frivolous romp through the frolicks of wartime matchmaking and, indeed, it is a book full of charm and hilarity, written in a no-nonsense style by an accomplished writer and storyteller, but it adds up to far more than that. * Country Life *
Glimpse into the matchmaking world of 1940s London with this delightful book. * New Day *
An absorbing story . . . the book crackles with insights into the mores of those times. * Mail on Sunday *
A fascinating account * The Lady *
Table of ContentsIntroduction - i: Prologue Chapter - 1: Audrey's Uncle Has a Brainwave Chapter - 2: No, It's Not a Brothel Chapter - 3: Open for Matrimonial Business Chapter - 4: The Capitulation of Cedric Thistleton Chapter - 5: The Perfect Secretary and Other Learning Curves Chapter - 6: New Clients Wanted - But No Spies, Please Chapter - 7: Mary Transforms Myrtle Chapter - 8: The Mansion and the Mating Chapter - 9: Mary's Bones and Babies Chapter - 10: While Bombs Fall the Bureau Booms Chapter - 11: Sex, Tragedy, Success and Bust Bodices Chapter - 12: A Sideline and Two Triumphs Chapter - 13: Other Agendas, Pastures New Chapter - 14: Heather Chooses Mating over Chickens Chapter - 15: Picot and Dorothy Hold the Fort Chapter - 16: Peacetime Problems Chapter - 17: Loneliness and Heartbreak Chapter - 18: Mr Hedgehog, Journalists, a Tiny Baptist and Lies Chapter - 19: A Chapter of Accidents and Designs Chapter - 20: Thanks to Uncle George Section - ii: Appendix Section - iii: Requirements of female clients 1939-c.1949 Section - iv: Requirements of male clients 1939-c.1949 Section - v: Interviewers' comments 1939-c.1949 Acknowledgements - vi: Acknowledgements Acknowledgements - vii: Picture Acknowledgements
