Search results for ""Author Monica Dickens""

'Life was a wordless battle of wits between us, with her keeping a sharp look-out for signs of neglect, and me trying to disguise my slovenliness by subterfuge. I became an adept at sweeping dust under the bed, and always used the same few pieces of silver' Unimpressed by the world of debutante balls, Monica Dickens shocked her family by getting a job. With no experience whatsoever, she gained employment as a cook-general. Monica's cooking and cleaning skills left much to be desired, and her first few positions were short lived, but soon she started to hold her own. Monica discovered the pleasure of daily banter with the milkman and grocer's boy and the joy of doing an honest day's work, all the while keeping a wry eye on the childish pique of her employers. One Pair of Hands is a fascinating and thoroughly entertaining memoir of life upstairs and downstairs in the early 1930s.

Read more less

INTRODUCED BY LISSA EVANS'I envy anyone yet to discover the joy of Monica Dickens. She's beady eyed, big hearted and blissfully funny' NINA STIBBE 'Wherever her eye falls, it finds the exact, significant detail, and her ear for dialogue is unerring' OBSERVER 'Monica's naked curiosity and general bolshiness are easy to identify with' LISSA EVANS Poppy, newly recruited cub reporter at the Downingham Post, is determined to prove to the editor that he's wrong in his belief that 'Women are a nuisance in the office'. He certainly doesn't think she's a nuisance when it's time for the tea round - a job which never fails to fall to the only female reporter.What Poppy lacks in experience, she makes up for in spirit and ambition. She'll make the Downingham Post the best regional newspaper there is - even if she occasionally gets the names wrong in court hearings. Life for a single professional woman in the post-war years certainly has its challenges - from finding a room, when the tyrannical landlady doesn't consider Poppy to be quite respectable to changing her editor's deeply entrenched ways. This semi-autobiographical novel, recounted with Monica Dickens's wit, warmth and wry observation will charm all who read it.If you enjoyed My Turn to Make the Tea, you will love One Pair of Feet, Dickens's novel of being a wartime trainee nurse, also published in Virago Modern Classics.

Read more less

INTRODUCED BY LISSA EVANS'I envy anyone yet to discover the joy of Monica Dickens. She's beady eyed, big hearted and blissfully funny' NINA STIBBE ' Humorous, moving and fascinating' CLARE MACKINTOSH Considering herself unsuitable for any other contribution to the war effort, Monica Dickens opts for nursing, imagining herself gliding through the wards, serene in a pure white halo cap. On enrolment, however, she is promptly stripped of all illusions. Intelligent and headstrong, Monica struggles to submit to the iron rule of the Matron and toils over the mountains of menial work that are a trainee's lot. But there are friends among the staff and patients, night-time escapades to dances with dashing army men and her secret writing project to keep her going.One Pair of Feet is a witty and brilliantly observed autobiographical novel, based upon Monica Dickens's own trials and tribulations as a wartime nurse.'Monica's naked curiosity and general bolshiness are easy to identify with, and as a narrator she always tells us what we're longing to know - it's like listening to a friend's anecdote, and egging them on' LISSA EVANSIf you enjoyed One Pair of Feet, you will love the novel that followed it. My Turn to Make the Tea, Monica Dickens's lively and entertaining novel about life as a cub reporter on a regional newspaper, is also published as a Virago Modern Classic.

Read more less