Old School Tinder bios: Exposed!

Marriage are made in Bond Street:True Stories From A 1940’s Marriage Bureau by Penrose Halson is an example of a non-fiction book that reads like a fictional one. The historical documents and photographs it includes are interspersed with lots of dialogue and anecdotes by the two women who founded a Marriage Bureau in 1939-Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, as well as their steady stream of clients, all looking to gain something different; love, stability, wealth, family or a reputation through Marriage.

It outlines two enterprising and hardworking women, taking an unconventional idea at the time, and forging on with it to create a new business venture, against the backdrop of a socially and historically trying time.

The premise is certainly intriguing and though the book started well, as it went on it began to feel a little long-drawn and monotonous. While the anecdotes recall clients from a cross-section of British Society in the 1940s, some of them started to feel a little repetitive, and it did feel like quite a few of them could have been culled to make this a more succinct read.

The inclusion of a list of the requirements of male clients and female clients,in what they were looking for in their prospective partners is included in the appendix and is one of the most interesting sections of the book. It proves more than ever, that while time has moved the world along, and a lot has changed, a lot has also remained static. Reading the list makes one release that while it may not be socially acceptable to vocalize certain specifications, while in the quest to find that certain someone the checklist for a lot of people you meet often seems unchanged. Read the list, and it will undoubtedly bring back several (possibly of your worst) Tinder conversations to mind.

Thus, while the subject matter itself is interesting, this is not a compelling read throughout. It isn’t the kind of book you can’t put down, rather one you can dip into as and when you get some free time or want some light and breezy reading before bed and want to flip through the Tinder conversations of yore.