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Description of Hot Mettle

"Stop Press" shows how a sixteen-year-old secretary, straight from school, broke the glass ceiling to lead a major trade union in the last major union confrontation in Britain...and then broke several more glass ceilings throughout her career. Brenda Dean was the leader of SOGAT when Rupert Murdoch started a bitter dispute as he sensationally moved his newspapers without notice from Fleet Street to Wapping. She led the negotiations, with secret meetings never before revealed, a woman in a man's world, fighting for the rights in which she has always believed. We learn of her early life and the battles in Manchester, with her meteoric rise to the top against all the odds. After the battle with the print bosses, she served on many major committees - the Armed Forces pay review, funding of higher education, the Housing Corporation, Freedom to Fly, becoming a truly 'working' peer. This is an inspiring and heart-warming story of success against all the odds.

Title Information

ISBN:

9781842752005

Pages:

352 pages

Format:

Hardback

Product Code:

172648

Publisher:

Politicos Publishing

Published:

12/02/2007

Edition:

illustrated edition

Press and Industry Reviews

'The Battle of Wapping was where Rupert Murdoch inflicted his historic and humiliating defeat on the London print unions. The episode was so humbling
you would have thought the defeated trades union leaders would want to forget it.
Not so: one who was caught regularly by the TV cameras in the violent swirl of pickets and police was Brenda Dean, the first woman leader of a British trade union. More feisty women like her at the top might do
wonders for the trades unions.' - Daily Mail

'Its 20 years since the fury of Wapping faded into defeat for the print unions - and Brenda Dean, former general secretary of one of them (SOGAT) has taken a long time to get her version in print. But Hot Mettle benefits
from that stretched perspective.' -Observer

'She shrugged off sexism to become the first woman to head a trade union, she faced Rupert Murdoch across the Wapping picket lines, and some thought she could have been 'Labour's Thatcher'. -
The Oldie

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About Brenda Dean

Brenda Dean was the first woman leader of a major trade union, SOGAT, and has served on many major committees, becoming a very active working peer. Keith McDowall is a highly successful journalist and PR expert turned author, with a wealth of experience with government, trade unions and industry.