New horizons and old misogyny

The sexism Dickens encounters and the micro-aggressions she has to deal with are instantly recognisable even in this day and age.

It would be easy to dismiss Monica Dickens’ semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman journalist working in a small, provincial British newspaper in the 1950s as a quaint, historical artefact that might excite the curiosity of a small section of contemporary readers and give them a view into how things used to be in a bygone era.

But for anyone who’s had to grapple with petty grievances and passive-aggressive one-upmanship in the workplace, My Turn to Make the Tea will seem very familiar despite the radical technological and societal changes that separate the world of the novel from our present day. Change the physical nature of the office from dark and wood-panelled cramped interiors equipped with typewriters and rotary phones to naturally lit open plan offices with hot desks and Slack channels on sleek laptops and yet human beings will continue to be essentially the same in both environments. We will play politics to advance our careers, desperately try to curry favour with the boss, and compromise our personal ethics if it means landing a plum assignment.

Born in 1915, Dickens came from an illustrious lineage — her great-grandfather was Charles Dickens. She was to build a devoted readership over five decades as a writer of books for both children and adults. According to Dickens, her relatives were not pleased that she’d taken to a literary career in the footsteps of her legendary ancestor — “Just as parents think that sex stopped with their generation, Charles Dickens was expected to be the last family member to appear in print."

My Turn to Make the Tea (published in 1951) was based on Dickens’ own experience of working in a post-war small-town weekly paper, the Herts Express, in Hertfordshire. In the novel, the town is fictionalised as Downingham and the paper is the Downingham Post where the narrator, a junior reporter and the sole woman in the newsroom, covers such exciting stories as petty cases in the local magistrate’s court and Women’s Institute concerts and school bazaars. The editor is a bull-like man named Mr Pellet who strikes through copy sent in by the reporters, replacing any aspirations towards the literary with his “tried favourites from stock”.

Besides being a great window into how a newspaper was run in the days when typesetting was still done manually, My Turn to Make the Tea is also a glimpse into how the post-war generation of young women, the first to enter the workforce in significant numbers, were coming to terms with a world that was opening up new possibilities and horizons for them. Dickens’ sense of observation, her warm voice and her irrepressible wit mean that she’s able to breathe life into even the smallest of passing characters in the narrative. And in the moments of the novel where tragedies strike, one feels the weight of the sadness. The people she writes about live small, quiet lives but she imbues them with the dignity they deserve.

The sexism and misogyny that Dickens encounters (it’s always the woman reporter’s task to make the tea for her colleagues) are at the heart of the story and the micro-aggressions she has to deal with in the choices she makes for herself are instantly recognisable even in this day and age. We may have moved forward in many respects from the world that the Downingham Post was reporting on, but a lot sadly remains the same.

The author is a writer and communications professional. When she’s not reading, writing or watching cat videos, she can be found on Instagram @saudha_k where she posts about reading, writing, and cats.

That One Book is a fortnightly column that does exactly what it says — it takes up one great classic and tells you why it is (still) great.