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Penrose Halson Marriages Are Made in Bond Street: True Stories from a 1940s Marriage Bureau Thursday 16th November, 7.45-8.45pm St Peter’s Church, Oundle In the spring of 1939, with the Second World War looming, two determined twenty-fouryear-olds, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, decided to open a marriage bureau.  They found a tiny office on London’s Bond Street and set about the delicate business of match-making. 

From shop girls to debutantes, widowers to war veterans, clients came in search
of security, social acceptance, or simply love.  Thanks to the meticulous organization and astute intuition of the bureau’s matchmakers, most found what they were looking for. The social history described in this wonderful book is fascinating, especially given the timing of the bureau’s start, just before the outbreak of war. 

Changing morals and a sense of carpe diem during the conflict added urgency and forthrightness to the proceedings.  In the questionnaires quoted as an appendix, one woman asked for “a man of character.  I do not mind if he is a war wreck”.  Another said: “My husband was killed serving as a captain in the Royal Artillery in North Africa. 

Would like another.”  The men were usually more demanding and unrealistic: one wanted a “beautiful girl with a big breast and lovely legs.  Not had any men friends, not been married before.” 

Others fancied the “looks and voice of a Shakespearean heroine”, or “Marilyn Monroe with homely ways”.  Results could be scarily quick – one couple met on Wednesday and were married on Friday – and over the course of the war the enterprise clocked up more than 2,000 weddings. Drawing on the bureau’s extensive archives, Penrose Halson tells Heather and Mary’s story, and those of their clients. 

All were desperately longing to find ‘The One’, and thanks to the marriage bureau, they almost always did just that. Before she married, Penrose Halson was an editor and writer, producing hundreds of educational language magazines and courses for children learning English as a Foreign Language.  When she met Bill in her forties, he spotted her talent for connecting people who she felt sure would get on well, and talked her into jointly buying the Katharine Allen Marriage & Advice Bureau. 

This also led to their marriage and, in 1992, they took over the oldest marriage bureau, established by Heather and Mary in 1939. £1 off early bird tickets bought before 9th November, available from the Oundle Box Office. Robert Winder The Last Wolf Saturday 2nd December, 7.45pm St Peter’s Church, Oundle What sort of a place is England?  And who are the English? 

As the United Kingdom turns away from its European neighbours, and begins to look increasingly disunited at home, it is becoming necessary to ask what England has that is singular and its own. Travelling the country, Robert looks for its hidden springs not in royal pageantry or politics, but in landscape and history. In 1290, something happened that would help shape the tamed and fertile English landscape we know today. 

Commanded by the King himself, a Shropshire knight named Peter Corbet killed the last wolf in England’s western shires.  The impact was immediate and profound: England became a vast and wealthy sheep farm, landholding on a grand scale became possible, commercial life was transformed, and a recognizable national culture began to emerge.

Revisiting the themes of his seminal book about immigration in Britain, Bloody Foreigners, Robert Winder’s The Last Wolf travels across modern England, looking deeper into history and nature to explore the origins of modern England and Englishness. 

It is often assumed that a national identity must be a matter of values and ideas but, in this brilliantly written account, Winder reveals a land built on a lucky set of natural ingredients: the island setting that opened it up to itself – and the world; the rain that fed the grass that nourished the sheep that provided the wool, the wheat fields that provided its cakes and ale, and the rich seams of iron and coal that made it an industrial giant.

Robert Winder was literary editor of the Independent for five years.  His works of nonfiction include Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain and The Little Wonder: The Remarkable Story of Wisden and his novels include The Final Act of Mr Shakespeare.

£1 off early bird tickets bought before 24th November from the Oundle Box Office. Tickets £8, conc. £6, available from the Oundle Box Office, 4 New Street, Oundle, open  Mon-Fri 10am to 4pm on 01832 274734  or at www.oundlefestival.org.uk Any queries, call Helen on 07743988181 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.