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An English woman, working as a part-time tea lady, serves tea to a female worker at an aircraft factory in Bristol, 1942
A tea lady in the Museum of the Great Western Railway, Swindon

A tea lady provides drinks in an office, factory, hospital, or other place of work. The role under this name began in Britain during World War II, and continues in the National Health Service today. It used to be a wide-spread occupation for women, and as such was well represented in popular culture.

History[edit]

Tea ladies entered the mainstream in the UK during the Second World War, when they were used in an experiment to boost efficiency in workplaces for the war effort (see Women in World War II#Workplace). They had such a hugely positive effect on morale they became commonplace in all areas of work, mobile canteens even serving military units on exercises.[1] They were present in a works canteen or perhaps came round with a trolley, on which was usually a tea urn full of either hot tea or hot water, and perhaps a selection of cakes and buns.

Decline[edit]

This occupation began to die out in the late 1970s to early 1980s when tea ladies began to be replaced by private catering firms and vending machines, as businesses expanded and women moved into different jobs. The tradition of the tea break, from which the role of tea lady rose, has itself declined, also offering a possible explanation why tea ladies are not commonly found today.

In Britain, market research in 2005 showed that of those workers who drank more than four cups of tea a day, only 2% of them received it from a tea lady,[2] whereas 66% received it from an urn, and 15% from a vending machine.

In Australia, Jenny Stewart, Professor of Public Policy in the University of New South Wales, uses the decline of the tea lady within the civil service as an example of "managerial solipsism": they provided civil servants with dependable "patterns of civilised sociability" at "significant economies of scale", but "they just faded away, as departments searched for easy ways of making savings".[3]

Current role[edit]

Tea ladies still exist in the National Health Service (NHS)[4] though the job of tea attendant is no longer restricted to women workers. Some hospital tea trolleys are operated by the Royal Voluntary Service.[5] Patients often comment on the tea ladies, and how their care made a hospital stay more bearable.[6][7]

Media[edit]

In the past Tea Ladies were often upheld as virtues of womanhood, in British comedy, with a tea lady usually portrayed as a jocular, humorous, well rounded, middle aged woman in a uniform and cap, or as a very pretty young women in peak fertility and her best child bearing years, gaining appreciative comments from her co-workers, as in the film Carry On at Your Convenience (1971).[citation needed]

In Australia, a sitcom called The Tea Ladies aired on Melbourne's ATV-0 in 1978.[8] Starring Pat McDonald and Sue Jones, it was set in the staff canteen at Canberra's Parliament House and featured topical humour referencing real-life politicians.[9][10]

Tea ladies in general were a frequent target of illusory "cuts" and "economies" in Yes Minister, frequently conjured up by Nigel Hawthorne's character Sir Humphrey Appleby, but a tea lady was only once seen onscreen during the whole five-series run of the show, sharing a lift with Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby in the episode "The Skeleton in the Cupboard" (1982).[citation needed]

The 2003 film Love Actually featured Martine McCutcheon as tea lady at 10 Downing Street.[11][12][13]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Your Mobile Canteen in Action". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
  2. ^ "Research carried out for tea4health in April/May 2005 by NOP on 1,000 adults". UK Tea Council. 2005. Retrieved 17 February 2007.
  3. ^ Stewart, Jenny (2004). The Decline of the Tea Lady: Management for Dissidents. Wakefield Press. p. 21.
  4. ^ Flaxman, Peter (2009). Flaxman's guide to surviving an nhs hospital stay. p. 35. ISBN 9780956155504.
  5. ^ "Royal Voluntary Service - Hospital trolleys". www.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  6. ^ "How the NHS helped me fight back - Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust". Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust. Retrieved 4 March 2018. But these complete strangers were incredible. Even down to the tea lady who saw I was struggling to drink so tried every cup they had until we hit one with a spout which helped me swallow. And once she had discovered the cup that worked the best, she kept it aside for me. How's that for putting the patient at the centre of their care? To me, it really made a difference.
  7. ^ Cumber, Robert (19 January 2017). "Tea lady at Sheffield hospital hailed as unsung hero of the NHS". The Star. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  8. ^ "The Tea Ladies". IMDB. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  9. ^ "Tea for few". The Age. 21 September 1978. p. 36. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
  10. ^ Lawrence, Mark (28 December 1978). "I, Claudius wins laurels in look at 78's best offerings". The Age. p. 25. Retrieved 7 August 2023. 1978 was not an outstanding year for new comedy... Bobby Dazzler (HSV-7) was a complete failure as was the cheaply produced Tea Ladies (ATV-0)
  11. ^ Fitzpatrick, Katie (10 January 2021). "The Masked Singer's reveals she sat next Donald Trump at Liza Minnelli's wedding". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
  12. ^ "The Love Actually cast, then and now: in pictures". The Telegraph. 17 February 2017. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
  13. ^ "The PM (Hugh Grant) and Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) | guardian.co.uk Film". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_lady

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