On the outbreak of war in 1914 there were two main suffrage movements in Britain, the women's social and political union (WSPU), a direct action campaigning group led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, and an older organisation, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, a largely pacifist organisation led by Millicent Fawcett. The Pankhursts struck a deal with the government which freed imprisoned suffragettes, receiving £2000 for their cause in return for encouraging women to take men's jobs to enable them to enlist. The move was controversial, but the Pankhursts rightly believed that support for the war effort would make it more likely in the future that women would get the vote. During WWI an estimated two million women entered the workplace, employed as taxi drivers, chimney sweeps, farm labourers, factory workers, mechanics, postwomen, barbers, railway employees and thousands of other jobs. Women were paid less than men for the same work and employers often wanted to keep them on after the war. Married women whose husbands were fighting received a separation allowance so long as they remained faithful. This informative book covers the main organisations overseeing women's work and lists those 241 nurses who lost their lives, with brief biographical details. Munitions was dangerous work, and an estimated 400 women lost their lives in explosions, eleven of which are described here, from Heckmondwike in 1914 to Chilwell in 1918. The work of the WAACs, Women's British Legion and other organisations is described, with a chapter on some remarkable women's achievements in the war including Dorothy Lawrence, who disguised herself and enlisted as a sapper, Edith Cavell, shot by the Germans for helping prisoners to escape, and Violet Constance Jessop, who survived the sinking of both the Titanic and the Britannia. 144pp, paperback, photos.

' I actually do not know of any writer alive in the English language, in verse or prose, who is cleverer, more observant or who has told us more about ourselves.' - A. N. Wilson. Ysenda Maxtone Graham, author of The Real Mrs Miniver, has mined the memories of more than 200 women for their personal job stories. She excels in the quirky, comic and even poignant details that resonate with our readers who are nostalgic for a dear British past. In this way she is a sort of George Orwell, but better. Drawn from real life, interviews with women from all sections of society who ever had a job, this book is an eye-opening portrait of British women from 1950, through cardigans and pearls via miniskirts and bottom pinching, to shoulder pads and the ping of the first emails in the early 1990s, never forgetting overalls, aprons and uniforms. And all this after what was a shockingly unambitious school education - girls with or without Maths O-Level, secretarial and 'little jobs', sewing and the inspiration of Anna the Air Hostess. Here is life as a secretary, living in digs, smoking, drinking and lunch, perks, machinery, lust and love in the work place and being an extension of one's husband. Here are the jollities and drudgeries, good men and vile ones, nasty women and heroines, office crushes, parties and great piles of paper all over the place, the forging of life long friendships, the daily burden of trying to run a household and family as well - in short, a look at all facets of this rich slice of British life. Ysenda has a high sense of comedy and her book is full of great anecdotes, expertly woven together, some from quite upper middle class backgrounds like the wonderful Rosie de Courcy in the late 1970s as Editor at Sphere Books. 'Men threw things. George Weidenfeld threw an inkwell at Mary Burd when she was his secretary in the 1960s...The boss-secretary relationship was one that facilitated tyranny.' "There was the long standing secretary in loose cardigan and the young, sexy one in tight cardigan whom he could have sexual fantasies about." Nostalgia galore. 303pp, photos.