Sex, rebellion, ambition, prejudice: the story of 1950s women has it all

Although the young women of the 1950s hovered on the cusp of change, many did not know it. Valerie Gisborn was the exuberant 15-year-old daughter of ‘a sharp-tempered, anti-social’ mother riddled with ‘neurotic restrictiveness’. But Valerie had fallen in love. She had met Brian in 1949 at the local ballroom in Leicester, her sole permissible social excursion of the week. Prevented from continuing her education by parents who insisted she earn her living at the city’s knitwear factory, Valerie’s early ambition to start her own business was crushed by the demotivating monotony of her job. Romance offered an emotional if not a physical escape. But the humiliating slap in the face that Mrs Gisborn gave Valerie when she spotted Brian kissing her in the street is as shocking to read about as it must have been to receive. The horrified Brian vanished for good.

Education, professional ambition, prejudice, sex, acceptance and rebellion, plus the inhibiting presence of a previous generation, are themes that run through Perfect Wives, an indefatigably researched, moving and perceptive book.