'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 insight into world's both upstairs and down in the early 1930s.

One Pair of Hands: Upstairs and Downstairs, Seen Through the Eyes of an Ex-Debutante Turned Cook

MONICA DICKENS

Ebury

As the effects of the war raging in Europe begin to be felt at home in London, Monica Dickens decides to do her bit and to pursue a new career, and so enrols as a student nurse at a hospital in rural Hertfordshire. By nature clever and spirited, she struggles to submit to the iron rule of the Matron and Sisters, and is alternately infuriated and charmed by her patients. That's not to mention 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

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Penguin Books, Ltd.

Joy and Josephine: (Penguin Book No. 1168)

Joy and Josephine

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Penguin??Books

One Pair of Hands

What does a young, well-off English woman do with herself when she's thrown out of acting school and is tired of being a debutante? Well, if you're Monica Dickens, you become a cook. She makes the plunge to a life "below the stairs," confident in her abilities to be a cook because she once took a course in French cuisine. She quickly learns the difference between school learning and real life. Scalded milk, dropped roasts, and fallen souffles plague her in her domestic career, but she perseveres. What makes this book so delightful is the sense of humor and drama Monica Dickens brings to her work. From dressing up for job interviews in a "supporting-a-widowed-mum look" to eavesdropping on dinner guests, she tackles her work with an enthusiasm for discovery. To her descriptions of battles with crazy scullery maids, abusive employers, and unwieldy custards, she brings a humorous and pointed commentary about the delicate and ongoing war between the wealthy and their servants. Written in 1939, this true-life experience reveals a writer who wasted no opportunity to explore daily lives and dramas. Her keen eye for detail, youthful resilience, and sense of the absurd make One Pair of Hands a deliciously inside look at the households of the British upper-class.

Historical

The third of Monica Dickens'' autobiographica l books describes her time as cub reporter on the Downingham Post, a long established small-town paper with a steady cir culation and not much sympathy with the innovations of its j unior reporter. '

My turn to make the tea

Penguin

Lieutenant-Commander, the hero of this novel, is axed from the Navy at the age of 36, one of many thousands obliged to re-plan their lives as the result of cuts in the armed services. A widower with a small daughter, he has no experience or knowledge outside submarines and the Royal Navy. His whole life had been that of a sailor since he joined up direct from school at the beginning of the war. This is not only the story of his struggles and adventures when he tries to find some way of earning his living; it is the story of his difficulty in adjusting himself to an unfamiliar civilian world. Monica Dickens's novel is the story of all such men in any of the services who find themselves so rudely thrust into the ordinary life of their country which, though they have served unselfishly, they find they are ill-equipped to live in. Written with the lighter humorous touch of some of her earlier books, it is a sympathetic presentation of the human side of one of those mass adjustments forced on society by the changing nature of the world and its affairs. 
Great granddaughter to Charles Dickens, Monica (1915-1992) was born into an upper middle class family. Disillusioned with the world she was brought up in—she was expelled from St Paul's Girls School in London for throwing her school uniform over Hammersmith Bridge—Dickens then decided to go into service, despite coming from the privileged class; her experiences as a cook and general servant would form the nucleus of her first book, One Pair Of Hands in 1939. Dickens married an American Navy officer, Roy O. Stratton, and spent much of her adult life in Massachusetts and Washington D.C., but the majority of writing continued to be set in Britain. Her book of 1953, No More Meadows, reflected her work with the NSPCC and she later helped to found the American Samaritans in Massachusetts. Between 1970 and 1971 she wrote a series of children's books known as The Worlds End Series which dealt with rescuing animals, and to some extent children. After the death of her husband in 1985, Dickens returned to England where she continued to write until her death aged 77.

Man Overboard

The Winds of Heaven (Penguin Books no.1917)

'Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more bypath meadows where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave.' So wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. Christine feels bound to agree. 'My wife can do anything,' Vinson says. Struggling to comply with this statement, Christine has to adjust to life in America, whilst catering to Vinson's idea of a good spouse. She must force a sycophantic smile for the wife of Admiral Hamer (who wears patent-leather shoes like bananas) in an effort to ease his promotion. There must be a cold Turkey and a cold ham at every party and she must suffer her ridiculous mother-in-law. Bitter arguments are relieved by bleak silences.  As the realities of married life wash away her rosy dream of it, Christine begins to wonder if Vinson is really what she wants.  First published in 1953, No More Meadows unravels the threads of a very real marriage. Full of her inimitable warmth and sense of idiosyncratic character, Monica Dickens explores Christine's heart-warming – and at times heart-breaking – search for happiness.

No More Meadows

Kate And Emma

At Follyfoot Farm, the Colonel looks after old and ill-treated horses, helped by his stepdaughter, Callie, and two stable-hands, Dora and Steve. These three have plenty to do at the stables, but can always find time to get involved in the mystery and adventure that abound at Follyfoot Farm.

Follyfoot

Children's Books

Piccolo

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Books by MONICA DICKENS