Tell It To The Bees
By Fiona Shaw
Tindall Street Press, £9.99, 304 pages
FT Bookshop price: £7.99

Tell It To The Bees is an affecting portrait of 1950s Britain, as seen through the eyes of Dr Jean Markham, an unmarried GP.

Consulting from her front room, as was common at the time, “Her evenings were filled with the sharp cries and racking coughs of sick children. She was exhausted and exhilarated.”

When off-duty, Jean indulges her passion for beekeeping. But if she finds that there is solace in the bees’ ordered society, it is sadly absent among her patients.

Charlie, a shy, isolated child, is brought by his boozy father to the surgery with unexplained injuries. Concerned for his welfare, Jean invites him to learn about the bees, and meets his mother, Lydia, a factory worker.

To their surprise, the two women discover love for one another. Tell it to The Bees powerfully exposes the wrenches of prejudice. It is a tender and unlikely page-turner.