And my other grandmother (born in 1921) was living in a communist country so, except for when her children were very young, she was working full time. You think you know what it was like for women then but it's mind boggling to think that pretty much no women tried to go to university at that time and Oxbridge wouldn't award women degrees! Is there really any one coherent story to be told, about all the women in the UK in one decade, set apart from the story of the whole population?

A good wife takes her spiritual life seriously because she knows it is beneficial to her husband and home. In the 50s it was primarily seen as a waste of time to educate women, as they were being primed for a life in the home - raising children and keeping house.It shows the lives of several women from the beginning of the decade to the end, accompanied by changes in wider society. Join us as we explore the qualities that not only define a good wife but also contribute to a thriving partnership. Step back in time to when our grandmothers scrubbed their doorsteps, cared for their families, lived, laughed, loved and struggled.

The book is enriched by its notes and bibliography, which make it a valuable resource, sending us off to read memoirs and autobiographies in full. The author’s use of women’s experiences brings the decade vividly to life and if I have learnt anything from it, it is that I am grateful for the choices and freedoms that I have as a woman today. Vilma from Jamaica, training to be a nurse in Eastbourne, is invited to wear a grass skirt in a student entertainment. Or Eileen, a London-trained nurse from a Catholic background in Kilkenny, whose moody, sexy Protestant boyfriend got her pregnant and had to marry her. Nicholson owns up to some “ache of nostalgia” for the aspirations of the perfect wives in the women’s magazines, with their Lysol and carbolic, shining their floor tiles, showing off their perfect pram, their Victoria sponge, their babies in home-knitted bootees and bonnets.Apparently, it is natural for women to be conditioned to accept stereotypical gender roles but men have no such excuse. Women might have had the vote on the same terms as men since 1929, but for most that was pretty well the limit of their equality: working women were paid much less than men and despite the responsibilities and sheer hard graft many had endured in wartime, were still regarded as submissive and inferior beings. When you see a woman you like, hold intelligent conversations around these qualities of a good wife to get insight into the kind of person she is.

It really brought the time period to life, and I appreciated that Nicholson took the time to look for women from all across the social strata, from girls born into privilege, those from the middle class, and those that had to work much harder for their tiny bits of freedom. They know how to give their old clawfoot bath-tubs a facelift with clever boxed-out panels cut to measure, or construct a telephone shelf out of three-ply. In creating a story of frustration, fear and ignorance where the dominant desire, linking debutantes to factory girls, is to escape the confines of their birth, Nicholson succeeds brilliantly.While the Proverbs 31 woman is intelligent and strong, she is notably distinct from the “independent woman” our culture praises.