LOVE IN THE TIME OF WAR

In 1939, two young women set out to make matchmaking and marriages a more businesslike affair. Jonny Wilkes delves into the story of the Marriage Bureau, and reveals how it transformed attitudes towards dating in Britain

- Jonny Wilkes

Neither Mary Oliver nor Heather Jenner expected much to happen when they arrived for work on 17 April 1939. It was the opening day of their new business venture, a matchmaking agency, and until word spread among London's single men and women, the enterprising if inexperienced friends, both 24, expected to have little to do other than smarten up their office above a hairdressers on Bond Street, with its rickety desks and dodgy plumbing. To while away the hours, Mary had brought along her knitting, Heather a book on how to play bridge.

But word had already spread. The novelty of the business, plus the charm of its young proprietors, had attracted plenty of newspaper coverage in the preceding weeks, and it obviously worked. The hundreds of letters already delivered meant Mary and Heather struggled to get through the door, and before long a knock announced their first client. A retired soldier in his forties, Major A sat patiently through the interview, filled out his form and immediately paid the registration fee of five guineas. The Marriage Bureau - the first of its kind - was up and running.

Mary (whose real name was Audrey Parsons, but who used a pseudonym so as not to embarrass her parents) got the idea from her uncle, a tea planter in India who met scores of men working abroad and desperate to marry. Impetuous and determined to live independently, having broken off two engagements, she couldn't shake Uncle George's thought of setting up a company to effect introductions between would-be spouses. What's more, she believed her ideal partner to be society chum Heather Lyon, an ex-debutante now separated from her husband and possessed of an equally strong-willed nature.