1987: Blessed are the Tea Ladies

Stirring Stuff - a tribute to the British national drink and all who serve it.

We take 196 million cups of tea a day. We reach for a cup in a crisis; we break for tea when we can. And the heroines of our favourite brew are the ladies of the tea trolley. Alice, Dolly, Edna and Margaret stroll through the mayhem of money-brokers in the City, down the chic corridors of a West End advertising agency, along the open offices of local government in Yorkshire. They dispense advice and succour, entertainment and good cheer to their thirsty customers.

Jack and Daisy, who lost their partners years ago, tea dance their blues away in the Palm Court once a week. WVS ladies tell stirring tales of how a nice cuppa kept us going in the blitz. Tough men on army manoeuvres prepare their own special brew.

But over all hangs the threat of the automatic tea dispenser....


Clip taken from Forty Minutes: Stirring Stuff, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 5 February, 1987.