Great grand daughter to Charles Dickens, Monica Dickens
(1915-1992) was born into an upper middle class family.
Disillusioned with the world she was brought up in - she was
expelled from St Paul's Girls' School in London for throwing her
school uniform over Hammersmith Bridge - Dickens then decided to go
into service, despite coming from the privileged class; her
experiences as a cook and general servant would form the nucleus of
her first book, One Pair Of Hands in 1939.
Dickens married an American Navy officer, Roy O. Stratton, and
spent much of her adult life in Massachusetts and Washington D.C.,
but the majority of writing continued to be set in Britain. Her
book of 1953, No More Meadows, reflected her work with the NSPCC
and she later helped to found the American Samaritans in
Massachusetts. Between 1970 and 1971 she wrote a series of
children's books known as The Worlds End Series which dealt with
rescuing animals, and to some extent children. After the death of
her husband in 1985, Dickens returned to England where she
continued to write until her death aged 77.
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