This is a great find with rather quirky stories and some fabulous photographs of women in the workplace, as well as a dip into the challenges facing women embarking on a career in decades past.

The author is best known for her surprise bestseller a few years ago 'Terms and Conditions: Life in Girls' Boarding Schools, 1939-1979'. I haven't read it but I understand her books follow a similar style.

So here she has collated interviews from subjects who share a common experience and then she presents their stories with a light narrative giving her own personal perspective as well as some statements about society as a whole. 

It is charming and entertaining though there are some sweeping generalisations and a bit of a simplistic acceptance of misogynistic behaviours then and now.  

It's a good reminder of how things were, though, and even in my sixth form years I can remember being told that good jobs for girls were as an air hostess, teacher or nurse. 

The book takes us to secretarial college, life in an office, the male bosses, the perks of jobs (it was considered highly desirable to have your weekly wash done for you in the factory machines rather than having to fit it into your home chores after work).

These are 'real life' accounts though the interviewees tended to boast a certain social standing.

It's an enlightening and enjoyable account which evokes a certain nostalgia for some aspects of working life, and a 'thank goodness we're over that', for others!