A 1987 BBC documentary form Forty minutes. documenting what tea means and more importantly Tea Lady’s mean to a diverse range of people. It documents the threats automation presents to these ladies profession, in the form of tea vending machines. This is particularly relevant to my recent Unit 7 T&M project, documenting the markets that feed London. For how automation presented by super markets has made the need for human to human interaction provided by traditional markets and tea ladies redundant. My documentary aimed to mirror this in humanising and documenting people on the verge of loosing their way of life to the ever increasing optimisation and automation of modernity.

Here is the copy from the description of the documentary:

We take 196 million cups of tea a day. We reach for a cup in a crisis; we break for tea when we can. And the heroines of our favourite brew are the ladies of the tea trolley. Alice, Dolly, Edna and Margaret stroll through the mayhem of money-brokers in the City, down the chic corridors of a West End advertising agency, along the open offices of local government in Yorkshire. They dispense advice and succour, entertainment and good cheer to their thirsty customers.

Jack and Daisy, who lost their partners years ago, tea dance their blues away in the Palm Court once a week. WVS ladies tell stirring tales of how a nice cuppa kept us going in the blitz. Tough men on army manoeuvres prepare their own special brew.

But over all hangs the threat of the automatic tea dispenser….