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.