The Listeners - by Monica Dickens (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The engrossing, heartwarming story of what happens when people at the end of their tether contact the Samaritans ...

In this deeply felt, absorbingly told novel, Monica Dickens not only vividly portrays three would-be suicides-but also the Samaritans themselves- Paul the ex-schoolmaster whose career has been ruined by an alcoholic wife, Victoria, half-engaged to a peer's conventional son, young Sarah who shimmers with youth and human compassion ...

This is a story in Monica Dickens' inimitable style- salted with humour, and inspired with love.

About the Author

Great grand daughter to Charles Dickens, Monica (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.