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Attack situations are different, not everyone gets a week

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H R block.com forward. Slash guarantees. Hello,

1:44

and welcome to Backlisted, a podcast which gives

1:47

new life to old books. Today

1:49

you find us on a cold morning in Salford

1:51

in the early 1930s. A

1:54

cobbled street stretches down towards gates

1:56

of a huge engineering plant. Three

1:59

towering... chimneys belch forth black smoke,

2:01

six smaller ones spit flames into the

2:04

freezing air. Down the

2:06

road, a crowd of men walk towards

2:08

the gate, gray mist of tobacco smoke

2:10

rising above them, their hobnail boots ringing

2:12

out on the cobbles. Behind

2:15

them, a teenage boy lurks, his baggy

2:17

breeches and stiff collar, marking out as

2:20

an office worker. Out of

2:22

place amid the working men and their overalls.

2:25

I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher on Bound, where

2:27

people crowdfund the books they really want to

2:29

read. I'm Andy Miller, the author of the

2:31

Year of Reading Dangerously. And

2:34

making his backlisted debut, we

2:36

welcome the writer, podcaster

2:39

and professional

2:41

northerner. Andrew

2:45

Hankinson. Hello Andrew. Hello. Thank

2:47

you very much for having me. Well thank you for coming.

2:51

Yes. I'm going to tell you who

2:53

you are now Andrew. Andrew Hankinson is

2:55

a journalist and author in Newcastle upon

2:57

Tyne. He has written two

2:59

books, Don't Applaud, Either Laugh or Don't,

3:01

at the Comedy Cellar. And

3:04

you could do something amazing with your life,

3:06

you are Ralph Mote. And

3:08

back in the days where we used to talk on this show

3:11

about what we've been reading this week, which

3:13

brackets we now do on

3:15

lockedlisters, but back on the

3:18

days when we did that

3:20

publicly, both

3:22

of Andrew's books were raved about by

3:24

me and John Mitchinson. And

3:26

indeed, Andrew today, a listener

3:30

said on disgraced

3:32

former platform Twitter that

3:34

they was on the, was it on

3:36

idyllic new platform blue sky? I'm not

3:38

sure. It was one of them anyway. Andrew,

3:41

they said, I didn't like the look of this

3:43

Ralph Mote book when it was published, but

3:47

I was persuaded by backlisted and it's

3:50

absolutely brilliant. There you go. Yeah. No,

3:52

I appreciated that. You kind of gave a lot of fuel to that book.

3:55

I'm not sure. Well, it was

3:58

easy to do. books

4:01

are magnificent

4:03

books which

4:06

mix

4:08

journalism and narrative non-fiction

4:11

and oral history and

4:14

experimental work. A

4:17

bit of memoir thrown in for good measure.

4:20

I'm asking on behalf of myself and John

4:22

and many of our listeners, are you working

4:24

on anything at the moment? For

4:28

about two weeks I've been working on something. I

4:30

hadn't worked on anything for a long long time

4:32

and then in the last few weeks I sort

4:34

of started to gather myself. I

4:36

love that. Gather is good just great work.

4:39

Take a while. Last

4:41

two weeks. Yeah I

4:43

understand why you deeply resent me asking the

4:45

question then. Well

4:49

you know it's two weeks in and you could easily

4:51

lose faith in it. It's something that I've had in

4:53

mind for five years or

4:55

so or something like that. But then you

4:57

start gathering yourself a little bit and start making the proper

4:59

notes and then on

5:01

with the project let's get cracking. And

5:04

you also are the host of

5:06

an excellent podcast

5:09

which I think many of our listeners if they're not

5:11

already familiar with it would enjoy very much. It's called

5:13

Log Roll which is quite

5:15

funny. And it's

5:19

a podcast and I've been on it and

5:21

now you're on this so well known. Brilliant.

5:25

It's a podcast about non specifically

5:28

about non-fiction and actually I think

5:30

the mechanics and craft of

5:32

non-fiction writing are not

5:35

discussed enough. So

5:38

Log Roll performs a very valuable

5:40

and fascinating function. Do

5:42

you feel you've learned much

5:44

from doing that in terms of feeding into

5:46

your own work? Oh yeah

5:48

huge amount. I mean that's kind of I

5:52

lost faith in kind of my writing for Goodwill and

5:54

it was doing those interviews kind of picks me back

5:56

up a little bit and you start to see the

5:58

way people do things. meets people use.

6:01

The main thing is finding a story, like finding

6:04

something to write about. You know, it's so hard

6:06

when you're scrabbling, I'm a non-fiction writer, not fiction

6:08

writers, so trying to scrabble around to think of

6:10

what to write about is really hard. Speaking

6:12

to all those people helped me a great deal. Do

6:15

you feel it's the story you're looking for from

6:17

a journalism point of view? Or is it that

6:20

it's a story you feel you want to tell?

6:22

That was what I was waiting for, for the

6:25

thing that you really, really want to get out

6:27

there, really, really want to get out on the

6:29

page. And do you think you will be thanking

6:31

each of your guests individually in the acknowledgement of

6:34

your next book? I think I should, yeah, definitely.

6:39

I think that seems only polite, given

6:41

what you've just admitted. I

6:44

think my last acknowledgments went on for about five

6:46

pages, so there's

6:48

plenty of room in them, so yeah, yeah. Okay,

6:52

well, that's good to hear. Well,

6:55

the novel that Andrew has chosen

6:57

for us to discuss is Love

6:59

on the Doll by Walter Greenwood,

7:01

first published by Jonathan Cape

7:03

in 1933, and widely

7:05

acclaimed as one of the finest portraits of

7:07

Northern Latin class life in

7:09

the interwar years. The plot

7:12

revolves around the Hardcastle family, who live in

7:14

a terraced house in Salford in the 1930s.

7:17

Harry, Hardcastle, is a bright teenager who gets

7:19

a job in the engineering works, only

7:22

to discover the deep iniquities of the

7:24

apprenticeship system. Worse is to

7:26

follow, as he gets a local girl pregnant, and

7:28

as the Great Depression deepens, he's

7:31

first laid off and then refused the duel

7:33

through the dreaded means test. At

7:35

the same time, his sister Sally falls in

7:37

love with Larry Meath, a socialist intellectual and

7:40

activist, but is forced

7:42

by poverty and misfortune to reject

7:44

him in favor of the sleazy

7:46

bookmaker Sam Grundy. Broadly,

7:49

that's what happens. Don't want to give too much away

7:51

about the plot. But

7:53

there you go. Walter Greenwood's authentic portrayal

7:55

of working class life and

7:58

the corrosive effects of massive unemployment. fresh

8:01

in mind from the late

8:03

1920s and early 1930s and the poverty it brought

8:05

in its wake was well received

8:07

by critics and it wasn't

8:09

until the 1934 theatrical version of Become a Hit

8:11

that the book was to take off as a

8:13

bestseller. It's estimated that a

8:15

million people had seen the play of

8:18

Love on the Doll by the end of

8:20

1935 and

8:22

Greenwood himself was quoted as saying I believe

8:24

at the end of the 1930s that it

8:26

had been either been seen or read by

8:28

three million people around the world because it

8:30

was a big hit not just in

8:33

the UK but elsewhere. It's remained

8:36

in print ever since however

8:39

it had to wait until

8:41

1941 before being

8:43

made into a classic film directed

8:45

by John Baxter and which featured

8:47

Deborah Carr in her first starring

8:49

role. We will discuss in

8:51

the course of this podcast why we had

8:53

to wait until 1941. The

8:56

novel in Greenwood's words presents the

8:58

tragedy of a lost generation who

9:01

had denied consummation indecency of the

9:03

natural hopes and desires of youth

9:06

and it seemed by many to pre-figure

9:08

the gritty social dramas of the 1960s.

9:10

Andrew and I were saying

9:13

when we were talking about

9:16

doing this, if it wasn't

9:18

for Love on the

9:20

Doll you wouldn't have the

9:22

kitchen sink drama Coronation Street or

9:24

the career of Alan Blaisdale to

9:26

name but three. It's

9:29

a profoundly influential book

9:32

and fascinating that its

9:35

author is so little

9:37

known and in that sense it's

9:40

a brilliant choice for backlisted. It's

9:42

probably not as widely known or read as it once

9:44

was and that's one of the

9:46

things we're here to explore. So Andrew

9:50

when did you first read Love on the Doll

9:52

or become aware of

9:55

the phenomenon of Love on

9:57

the Doll or of Walter Greenwood? It's

10:00

definitely the book I became aware of rather than

10:02

the author. I

10:04

kind of knew I was going to be doing this.

10:06

I started trying to piece it together and I went

10:08

back and looked at when I bought the book was

10:10

in February 2009. And

10:15

in 2009, I was a journalist

10:17

working in London and I was on the dole for

10:19

a bit of that year. So I think it must

10:21

have appealed to me. And

10:23

we got married. Great title. Yeah.

10:27

I got married in February, 2000. In

10:30

February, 2010. So like a

10:32

year after I got the book and we actually

10:34

did a reading like madly in hindsight,

10:36

like people must have been not having

10:39

a clue what on earth we were doing, but we had a reading from

10:41

this book at my wedding as well. Because

10:43

I fell in love with it so much. Which

10:45

is just embarrassing now. It's because it's

10:47

wedding day. Nobody mentions it, do they? But so we

10:50

thought it was great. I'm sure everyone else thought it

10:52

was mad. Would it be right to say that you

10:54

were in love with love on the dole on the

10:56

dole? Yes, I was. And

10:58

my wife loved it as well, the book.

11:01

So it basically quickly fell in love with

11:03

it. But what I couldn't remember was

11:05

how I found out about the book. And

11:07

I thought it must have been from my

11:09

dad. So this book set in Hanky Park,

11:12

which is an area of sulfur, which no

11:14

longer exists, and it's named Hanky Park after

11:16

this street called Hankinsons Street.

11:18

Yes. That's a good word. That's

11:21

so funny, Coen, isn't it? You've

11:24

chosen a book. Is

11:27

that right? Don't turn around your own

11:29

name. Yeah.

11:31

Anyway, please go on. And I'm getting away with

11:33

it so far. It's quite incredible. Yeah, so good.

11:37

Yeah. So basically, my dad's from this area. Lots

11:40

of his family lived in Hanky Park, but my dad

11:42

didn't. He lived about a mile away from Hanky Park,

11:44

but also insulted. I knew he hadn't read

11:46

the book, but I thought he must have told me about the

11:48

book. But I think I sent him a copy at some point

11:50

and in 2021, he emailed me to tell me

11:54

that he had a go at it like three

11:56

or four. My dad wasn't much of a reader. He'd

11:58

had to go to three or four times. struggled

12:00

with the, you know, reading the dialect in

12:03

particular, he didn't think like that. But in 2021 he sent

12:05

me an email and said he'd finally read it and he

12:07

thought it was a great book. But

12:09

then I was looking back to his emails and I

12:11

was realizing actually he thinks I told him about the

12:13

book rather than him telling me about it. So I'm

12:15

not sure it was him he told me about it.

12:18

And then so the other option

12:20

was that not that my dad

12:22

told me about it, but that

12:24

the dad from the BBC comedy

12:27

series The Royal Family is

12:29

where I got it from. Because there's an episode of The Royal

12:31

Family where Jim Royal, Anthony's

12:34

on the dole, I think he's got a new

12:36

girlfriend and Jim Royal on Christmas Day

12:38

decided to do charades and

12:40

one charade is Ricky

12:42

Tomlinson. Yeah, yeah. So Jim Royal

12:46

in T, he does the charade, which

12:48

is, you know, your film book stage

12:50

play first word and he points

12:53

at his heart, love, and then he goes on,

12:55

you know, second word on third word, and

12:58

then fourth word and he goes and he points

13:00

at his bum and goes, doh. And

13:07

I think that I might actually be where I first heard

13:09

of this love on the dole. And I

13:11

must have looked it up and then gone from there,

13:13

you know, and then told my dad about it and

13:15

stuff because it had Hankinson in it, I guess. Yeah,

13:17

we don't know. But that may well have come from

13:19

Ricky Tomlinson himself because my

13:21

copy of Robert Trestle's The Ragged

13:24

Trails of Philanthropists has a

13:26

quote of recommendation on the cover from

13:28

Ricky Tomlinson. So like

13:30

the great trade unionist and

13:33

socialist that he is, he

13:36

gives his imprimatur to the most

13:39

rigorously left wing texts available.

13:41

Yeah, yeah. I thought it was great. Yeah,

13:43

so basically, I heard about it from my dad or from It's

13:48

a good answer. John,

13:53

have you read this before? No, I

13:55

haven't. And I'm really disappointed in myself.

14:00

because I like

14:02

to think that I'm quite good on novels

14:04

with a broadly socialist kind

14:07

of background and you know

14:09

working class writing of which

14:11

this is a, have to say, supreme

14:13

example. And we'll

14:16

talk about why in more detail. But

14:18

yeah, no, I was vaguely aware of

14:20

the film and I was vaguely aware

14:22

of the book as a title. But

14:25

it's funny when you suggested it, you're

14:27

dead right, Walter Greenwood has very

14:30

little resonance. And I

14:33

think it's kind of, well,

14:35

we obviously will talk about why that might be. But

14:38

it's been a fabulous experience

14:40

reading the book. Does it not

14:42

put you off a little bit? And it's so bleak

14:44

as well, though, you know what I mean? I'd love on

14:46

the dole to take it. I think that's, I was worried

14:49

about suggesting it. Put us off. Okay,

14:51

well, you've heard this show, right? Put

14:54

us off. Put quite the reverse. If

14:56

it was called, I don't know, love

14:58

on the beach, I wouldn't be interested

15:00

in it. I think one of the

15:03

things I admire hugely about it, and

15:05

is its willingness to

15:07

not let, you know, not to give you a

15:09

happy, sorry, spoiler alert, there is no happy ending,

15:12

tough. If you don't know that, you do know

15:14

it now. But it's not

15:16

a tragic ending either. But it is

15:18

just, it feels like life. Yeah, I

15:20

mean, we ought to issue a warning,

15:22

not merely of spoilers in

15:25

the discussion of this book, but

15:27

also the likelihood of terrible northern

15:30

accents from the least. Two

15:33

of the people you're going to be hearing today.

15:35

You said about your dad, Andrew, not

15:38

liking dialect in books. And

15:40

it is really hard to dialect

15:42

in books. Let's be honest, it's

15:44

really difficult to do. But I found

15:46

that once I'd got the

15:48

kind of the rhythm of

15:51

the dialect, it was really interesting. It's got

15:53

to be one of the earliest

15:57

and most extreme uses of

15:59

dialect. dialect in an English

16:01

novel. And I

16:04

think aesthetically, in the end,

16:06

I applaud him for

16:09

doing that because I think it does, you

16:11

do get a real sense of the slang

16:13

and the and the rhythm of working class

16:15

speech in 30s in Salford. Well,

16:18

I think that this would actually be a

16:20

very good time for exactly that reason for

16:24

giving us a sense of place. So

16:26

we have a clip here from near

16:29

the end of his life of Walter

16:31

Greenwood being interviewed on Look North,

16:34

or the equivalent thereof,

16:36

about the redevelopment of Salford, and

16:39

how his bit of Hanky Park

16:41

had been bulldozed and was about to be redeveloped.

16:43

And so they took him to the site, and

16:46

they interviewed him. And we're going to listen to a

16:48

couple of minutes for it, because I just think it's

16:50

so evocative of the world that

16:52

he was coming from, which was disappearing by

16:55

the time you hear this. It

16:57

should be destroyed. I think it's a good thing. Well,

17:00

it's so it was so in senator, you

17:02

know, and not that I

17:04

like the eyes flat so much. Because

17:07

that again is poor people when they stuck

17:09

down on the top. It's

17:12

not the neighborliness, that's the thing that's

17:14

been destroyed. And I noticed that they're

17:16

bringing back the territories now in

17:19

Manchester, which is an excellent thing. Because

17:22

you're on the ground level and everybody

17:24

knows everybody else. And

17:27

the condition of life is so much improved

17:29

now. You can't compare, you shouldn't

17:31

compare anywhere, anyway, but

17:34

oh, it's such a change. I mean,

17:36

this, this was our typical playground. We

17:39

call this a croft. What sort of games did

17:41

you play on an area like this? Well,

17:43

anything that was going football fights,

17:45

any fight, any glitch fight

17:48

on here. Again,

17:54

I wouldn't like to go there, but there was some tough ones

17:56

there. Every street at the Cocketer

17:58

Street. And then

18:02

if five lads from another street would come along

18:05

and say, you want agreement? Aye,

18:07

just imagine the chances. What, five

18:09

on you? Great. One

18:12

got five on you. That means five fighting

18:14

one. But the rule was, if

18:17

the lad who was on his own, the

18:19

cock of Alice Street knocked anybody down

18:21

on their knees, on the backside,

18:24

that was finished. They could have walked away. But

18:26

they usually kept their good lad to about the fourth down

18:28

the line. Hoping when I get

18:30

a good clout in, then he'd get a bit of

18:32

an easy job. And I saw

18:34

Burt, Burt had to go through the five of them. They

18:38

kicked off the clogs in the stocking feet, you know,

18:40

not kicking. And they lined them

18:42

up and they went right down, bang, bang, bang. Wonderful

18:45

job. Because we were cheering him like

18:47

mad. You would not think

18:49

that Walter Green would have had a

18:51

40 year literary career and had traveled

18:53

the world and had been a

18:56

scriptwriter and

18:58

lived in Hollywood and

19:01

had an international

19:05

reputation, would you? He's

19:08

somebody who has

19:10

not forgotten where he comes from. Hacky

19:14

Park lad. Yeah, I've never actually heard him

19:16

speak before, so it's really interesting. Lots

19:19

of his lingo there just sounded like my dad. It's

19:21

quite interesting what he's saying, you know, it's like kind

19:23

of good that the solitary conditions have changed. But

19:25

it's also what did you lose by knocking down all

19:27

those places? You know, if you look at like Salford

19:30

Shopping Center, which got built in its place, it's a

19:33

you know, it was really an upgrade. I'm

19:35

not sure that interview was conducted outside

19:38

the Salford Lads Club, which

19:40

is the location of extremely

19:42

famous photograph of the

19:45

Smiths as pictured on the gatefold sleeve

19:47

of the album. The Queen

19:49

is Dead. Yes, that is the sort of

19:52

where people now flock from over the world

19:54

to have their photographs taken. I'm

19:56

just going to read the blurb and then I would

19:58

like to ask you both as publishing professionals. professionals and

20:00

writers whether you think this blurb

20:02

is an adequate blurb for love

20:06

on the dole. In

20:09

Hanky Park near Salford Harry and

20:11

Sally Hardcastle brother and sister grow

20:13

up in a society preoccupied with

20:15

grinding poverty exploited

20:17

by bookies and pawnbrokers bullied

20:20

by petty officials and living in constant

20:22

fear of the dole queue and the

20:24

means test. His love

20:26

affair with a local girl ends in a

20:29

shotgun marriage and disowned

20:31

by his family Harry is tempted by

20:33

crime. Sally meanwhile

20:35

falls in love with Larry

20:37

Meath, a self educated Marxist.

20:41

But Larry is a sick

20:44

man and there are other more

20:46

powerful rivals for her affection. And

20:49

then there's a quote from the TLS. As a

20:51

novel it stands very high that

20:53

it is in its qualities as a

20:55

social document that it's great value lies.

21:00

Well, how do we feel about that as a blurb?

21:02

That seems reasonable to me. What's wrong with it?

21:05

I get you implying that it's oh Well,

21:08

just from the look on my face, you know Yeah

21:12

Well, let me ask John. John, what do you think? I

21:15

I don't like the way that this book

21:17

gets characterized as being a kind of a

21:20

A I think it's I think

21:22

it's a good I think it's a really good novel. Yeah,

21:25

and I think this idea that it's something similar Something

21:28

socially important about yes, it is that

21:30

but but I think what's interesting about

21:32

it is that it's it's a It's

21:36

aesthetically much more interesting than

21:39

I think it's often given credit for Um,

21:42

it gets knocked For two reasons

21:44

it gets not slightly put down in that kind

21:46

of way of it's not really a great novel

21:48

but it is rather important because it's a you

21:50

know, it's That what it's writing

21:52

about is important and then Politically

21:55

people say oh, well, of course Greenwood was, you

21:57

know classic sort of he was a sort of

21:59

a centrist dad of his his time, you

22:01

know, he should have been much more politically

22:03

kind of a condemn natori. But

22:05

actually, he's not he's a bloody

22:07

novelist. And that's what makes this

22:09

book really resonate for me is

22:11

he, he doesn't refuse the moral

22:13

complications that all the characters face.

22:16

Yeah, that TLS bit the TLS quote, we're saying,

22:19

yes, you know, it's quality to the social document.

22:21

That's a bit. Yeah, that's making its own

22:23

debate. Don't listen it. And it's not dull at all.

22:26

It's also making it sound like it's

22:28

like it's a dispatch from some wilderness.

22:31

Right. Yeah. I

22:34

must mention there's a wonderful book by

22:37

Chris Hopkins called Walter Greenwood's Love

22:39

on the Doll novel play film.

22:41

And Hopkins says in

22:43

that it does him a huge

22:45

disservice Greenwood, to say

22:47

the think he's only worth

22:50

hearing from when he's reporting

22:52

back on the world he

22:54

knows. You

22:56

see what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

22:58

it's kind of inherently class based

23:01

that criticism of him. And I agree with

23:03

john, this feeds into a debate that we're

23:05

always having on this program, which and others

23:08

are too, about mid

23:10

the middlebrow, right? Yeah,

23:13

middle brow being a term which has been

23:15

somewhat reclaimed over the last few years, but

23:17

the idea that it's kind of because

23:20

it doesn't have the intellectual

23:23

or experimental nature of high

23:26

literature, it is, therefore,

23:28

not worthy of serious

23:31

consideration. I didn't find that

23:33

with this novel at all. I found it. No,

23:35

fascinating. And indeed, we'll

23:38

talk a bit about his other books, but his other books, several

23:40

of these other books seem to me to be doing a similar

23:42

thing, which is using a kind

23:45

of middlebrow form to explore quite

23:47

advanced political ideas. So

23:50

do you revise your view of the blurb in

23:52

the in the light in the light that you've

23:54

just had it explained by me and Joe, I

23:56

think the I think the blurb was kind of

23:58

fine. I think the TLS is a

24:00

bit, the one making the phone call. But yeah,

24:02

it's, you know, but what

24:04

you're saying, I think he's just a great storyteller. Like,

24:06

you know, this is the character this is going to have

24:08

to them takes you on the ups and downs, ups and

24:11

downs. But it's also the way he gets in and

24:13

out of each character's points of view,

24:15

like so many different characters and you go into

24:17

their point of view. And you're like, Oh, wow,

24:19

I'm in here now. And then I'm in here

24:21

now. And I'm in here. And he just does

24:24

it straight from the off from the beginning of

24:26

each each chapter. And I just thought

24:28

that was absolutely fantastic. And when I read it for this,

24:30

I was just like, Oh, this is why I loved it.

24:32

Because it doesn't

24:34

dwell on anything too long. You do a couple

24:36

of pages of this person, and then you're right,

24:38

I'm off to this person again now. So yeah,

24:40

I think it's a great storyteller, you know, much

24:42

more than a social document, which is a bit

24:44

like patronizing. I think you're

24:47

right, Andrew, I also think what we were

24:49

saying about the use of dialect in it,

24:51

this is one of those things that was

24:53

probably much more challenging and experimental in

24:55

1934, than

24:57

it appears to us now, that

25:00

a novel was and this novel was

25:02

published by Cape, wasn't it? Cape. Yeah,

25:04

it's fascinating. You know, so it's it's

25:07

not it's not being

25:11

shilled by a mid market publisher.

25:13

It's a it's one of the

25:15

it's an up market publisher, presenting

25:18

something with with both artistic

25:21

and documentary merit. Yes,

25:25

the book, oddly enough, this reminds

25:27

me most of which I've had

25:29

just had cause to just reread.

25:31

I was completely by accident is

25:33

an amazing book called The Grass

25:35

Arena by John Healy, who

25:38

lived on the streets. I remember it well. Yeah, who

25:40

lived who lived as a whino. And it

25:43

has the similar kind of quality at the

25:45

best, the best of the of Walter Greenwood,

25:48

is that he is not he's

25:50

not making these people into emblems

25:52

of class kind of class.

25:55

He's making them proper complicated

25:58

characters who are somewhat what

26:00

damaged by the poverty, their capacity

26:02

to feel and feel for other

26:05

people and to think and reflect

26:07

positively on their experiences are

26:09

damaged by the horror of their lives

26:11

that they're having to live. Even

26:14

even Larry, the self educated Marxist, did he work at

26:17

all times? There were there were points where I was

26:19

like, oh, this is Walter

26:21

Greenwood delivering his lecture on, you know, the

26:23

money and what money really means and stuff.

26:25

I'm going to read you a section from

26:28

one of his other novels in which another

26:30

self educated Marxist makes an appearance. I

26:32

think that Walter, that's

26:35

one of Walter's stock characters, but it's probably

26:37

based on himself, you see. So that's OK.

26:40

Andrew, would you please read us a little? Have

26:43

you chosen a bit there? Sure.

26:47

One of the kind of big themes of the book is

26:49

is trying to get together money to buy clothes, to buy

26:52

nice clothes, to buy clothes that you need to work in

26:54

as well. There's a bit where

26:57

Harry, so he's from this he's got poor family and

26:59

they haven't got very much money at all. But Harry's

27:02

coming of age where he wants a nice suit. And

27:05

this is where this kicks in. So

27:08

his querulous complaints began to wear

27:10

his father's nerves. The boys

27:12

seemed absolutely impervious to reason. Weren't

27:15

they in debt enough without contracting more for

27:17

such inessential things as new suits, such

27:19

a suit as the lad desired, would

27:21

cost three pounds easily. That meant three

27:23

shillings interests be found before Grumple would

27:25

issue an order to the outfitter, then

27:28

would follow 20 weeks installments of three

27:30

shillings. Three shillings a week, though. This

27:33

kind of thing, not being able to provide

27:35

adequately for one's family, made a

27:37

man feel an irresponsible fool, humbled

27:39

him, haunted him to the point

27:41

of driving him to frantic, foolhardy experience.

27:44

Money, money, money. The temptation to

27:47

go drown, worry and misery and

27:49

drink was, at times, almost irresistible.

27:52

Going abroad, you would find himself brooding,

27:54

muttering to himself, worked every

27:56

hour God sent every day in my life

27:59

and whatever got to see for it, every

28:01

bloody day, every bloody hour, and

28:03

worse off, and it must be first wed.'

28:06

Harry was unaware that his father's

28:08

absences from home were contrived. Every

28:11

time he caught the boy's gaze it said mutely, ''When

28:14

am I to have a suit, father?'' He

28:17

couldn't bear to look. Better to

28:19

keep out of the lad's way as much as

28:21

possible. His cause was just. The

28:23

poor little devil wasn't fit to be seen. He

28:25

was the only one in the house working full-time,

28:28

and he gave up every penny of his wages. Oh,

28:31

Hardcastle felt an urgent desire to be able to

28:33

take out his brains and plunge them in cold

28:35

water. To Harry, his

28:37

father's stern visage was the perfect

28:39

mask. Had he known he would have

28:41

been astounded that his father should be afraid of meeting him.

28:44

He persisted until one Sunday

28:46

evening, Hardcastle, in desperation,

28:48

exclaimed, ''Oh, Mrs. For God's sake,

28:51

get him that blasted suit. Blimey sick of

28:53

it all I am. Victorious,

28:55

Harry's hungry joy amounted to

28:58

hysteria. In his excitement,

29:00

the haggard, relaxed expression on his

29:02

father's face meant nothing to him.'' Very,

29:06

very, very good. I'm not

29:08

sure if anyone else thought this at all, but that

29:10

thing with the suit where you know that it's going

29:12

to lead to problems, there's so much in this book

29:14

where something happens and you're like, and it's just the

29:16

inevitability, and it's just something minor. It kind of reminded

29:18

me of like, a view from a bridge, one

29:21

of those things where you're just like, something's

29:23

gone wrong here. And then these

29:25

characters have no way to correct it. They've got

29:27

no way to be a happy ending. And that's

29:29

what I love about it so much is you're

29:31

just watching these characters just march to the inevitable

29:35

unhappy ending, if it

29:37

is an unhappy ending. I guess we can discuss that as

29:39

well. Yeah, I think

29:41

I totally agree with that. I think that's

29:44

that's what gives it such a powerful sense

29:48

of the inevitable grinding

29:51

quality. You know that it's depressions

29:53

on the horizon. And you know,

29:57

the moments of hope in the book when

29:59

Harry, amazing, wins. He gets

30:01

a three-way bet at Sam Grundy's and he

30:03

wins 22 pounds and there's

30:06

this astonishing scene where Sam

30:08

Grundy drops 22 pound

30:11

notes at this theatrical

30:13

way and Sam Grundy is of

30:15

course the kind of spivvy guy

30:18

who's running the bets who ends

30:20

up pursuing Sal, Harry's

30:22

sister. But you can tell

30:24

even with that money that it's not going

30:26

to be enough, he's not going to get

30:29

the life with holidays and hopes

30:31

and happiness that he deserves.

30:34

They go blow it all on a holiday don't they?

30:36

Which is like you kind of think like you go

30:38

oh you shouldn't do that you know save it keep

30:40

it but at the same time it's like throughout the

30:42

book it's this thing of life

30:45

is nothing unless you have nice holidays if you don't

30:47

have all the nice things in

30:49

life that make life worthwhile as Larry says

30:51

you know if you don't have those life's

30:53

meaningless so spend it on a

30:55

holiday. They go to Blackpool don't they?

30:57

Yeah. So it's in the tradition Alan

30:59

Silatoe picks that up exactly that same

31:01

beat for the loneliness of the

31:03

long distance runner which is certainly

31:07

in the film of in Tony Richardson's

31:09

film where they they take the two

31:11

girls off to off

31:13

to Blackpool just for the fun that

31:16

there's any fun available to them blow

31:18

all the money and then that leads them

31:20

into robbery subsequently.

31:25

I'd like to read a little bit if I may from

31:27

the beginning of the second

31:29

section and this is

31:31

slightly different you know we've been talking about the

31:33

interiority of the characters and we've

31:36

been talking about how he

31:38

he does interesting things with

31:40

narrative and

31:42

psychological perspective but here's a bit

31:45

of writing that I thought was

31:47

really brilliant

31:49

it you could almost imagine this

31:51

being written by somebody like Ilya

31:54

Ehrenberg or a Soviet

31:56

writer of the revolutionary

31:58

era. because

32:02

it's a sort of paradigmatic

32:04

account of what happens in

32:07

the age of mechanization to the

32:10

working man. And it's done so

32:12

lightly and so efficiently and so

32:15

forcefully. So I'd just

32:18

like to read you this. These

32:22

new experiences, compatible work,

32:24

money to spend, Saturday nights

32:26

entertainment, brought with them

32:28

a calm serenity, which gradually

32:31

assumed an air of permanency as though it

32:33

had come to stay for ever more. Memories

32:36

of Price and Joneses receded

32:38

were forgotten. The

32:41

human nature in him, though,

32:43

found errand-running become stale and

32:45

uninteresting. He fretted for

32:48

promotion, never allowed an opportunity

32:50

pass without pestering Joe Ridge, the foreman,

32:52

who often has not answered snappily, oh,

32:55

for God's sake, give all them madrimis, son, you'll

32:57

be shoved in a bloody machine when it's your

32:59

turn. Tech things easy while you've a chance. When

33:02

you work again, stop watching me bloody sick of

33:04

sight of machines. Blimey, some of you

33:06

kids don't know when you're cushy. Off it now,

33:09

I'm busy. Sorry,

33:11

though. Sorry to be

33:13

entrusted with a lathe, a machine. Machines,

33:18

machines, lovely, beautiful words.

33:20

He would

33:22

stand staring unblinkingly at the elder

33:25

apprentices at work on the machines.

33:27

Imagine it. They all were under 21

33:29

years of age. Sudden doubts clutched

33:32

his heart. Had he their intelligence?

33:35

Would he ever be as proficient

33:37

as they? Suppose when opportunity came

33:39

his way, he proved to be

33:41

a miserable failure, but he wouldn't

33:43

fail. Hey, our castle, got the

33:45

stars for this. Come on, man.

33:47

Look alive. Don't stand dreaming there.

33:49

Aaron boy, roll on time.

33:52

Come the day when some other boy would

33:54

take his place. He became an

33:56

assiduous student of the others working, flattered them

33:58

cunningly that they might be induced to impart

34:00

scraps of knowledge, was ever ready to watch

34:02

a man's work who wished to have sent

34:05

himself from the machine for a short spell.

34:07

Then, when wanting a few months

34:09

of his sixteenth birthday, promotion came.

34:12

Strange movements were afoot, change taking

34:14

place everywhere. A great deal of

34:16

the old machinery was taken away

34:18

and replaced by new, beautiful, marvellous,

34:20

wonderful contraptions that filled the eye

34:22

with pride to look upon. Hundreds

34:25

of the old faces were missing

34:27

one Monday morning. A

34:30

batch of new boys came into the machine

34:32

shops and, strange to relate, none

34:35

of the indentured apprentices. Nobody

34:38

knew why, nobody cared.

34:41

Rumour said that trade was bad, but

34:44

how could it be with all this new

34:46

machinery, this general

34:48

upset, reshuffling and

34:51

reorganisation? All this

34:53

was more suggestive of busy times, anyway

34:55

they couldn't sack him. He

34:57

was bound apprentice for seven years, only

35:00

two of which had elapsed. I

35:04

was minded of that process today, everybody, when

35:06

I was stood at the self-service till

35:09

it didn't work in Sainsbury's

35:11

thinking, oh yeah, there used to be a

35:13

person here who did this job and knew

35:15

what they were doing and now they've got

35:17

rid of all those people and they've got

35:19

all these lovely machines that don't work. Yeah,

35:22

yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll take a little break and we'll be

35:24

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35:56

you went on a road trip and you didn't stop for a

35:58

Big Mac or drop a... be fried

36:00

between the car seats or use your

36:02

McDonald's bag as a placemat, then that

36:04

wasn't a road trip, it was just

36:06

a really long drive. But

36:08

a m-b-b-b-b... and participating McDonald's. So

36:12

we've talked about Love on the Dole as a

36:14

historical novel, and I suppose mostly is treated as

36:16

such as because it was such a phenomenon in

36:18

the 1930s and 40s, and in fact through

36:22

many subsequent decades. But

36:24

do you think it feels like a contemporary novel still,

36:26

or is it stuck in the past? The whole time

36:28

I was reading I was thinking about... Because

36:31

it's so in the news at the moment, but AI,

36:33

you know, AI is done for this, it's done for

36:35

that. And just, you know, I'm a

36:37

journalist, and like over the past, you know, 2023, there

36:39

were just thousands

36:43

of people getting laid off in journalism. And

36:46

you know, the older people

36:48

get laid off, lose their jobs, can't get

36:50

work, and they bring in people

36:53

who've never worked in the industry before

36:55

to just churn stuff out. But

36:58

all the same structures are there, aren't they? Basically just

37:00

reducing the cost of labour, and using

37:03

machines to replace people. And

37:06

you know, you're seeing that kind of larry from

37:08

the book sort of saying this stuff, but you

37:11

can see the patterns all around us, they're exactly

37:13

the same, the patterns haven't changed whatsoever, I don't

37:15

think, you know. We've got inside toilets now instead,

37:17

and you know, nicer shops and things like this,

37:19

but actually, the

37:22

patterns of employment are still the same. And

37:24

there's also, I think, you know,

37:26

there's the same descriptions of the same,

37:28

it's brilliant. I might just read this

37:31

little piece where he

37:33

is finally when Harry is put on the

37:35

dole. And this is

37:38

as relevant to today as

37:40

anything. He's on the

37:43

dole, and it's called the chapter six, it's

37:45

called the man of leisure. It

37:47

got you slowly with a

37:49

slippered stealth of an unsuspected

37:51

malignant disease. You

37:53

fell into the habit of slouching, of

37:56

putting your hands into your pockets and keeping them

37:58

there, of glancing at people a

38:00

ashamed of your secret until you

38:02

fancied that everybody eyed you with

38:04

suspicion. You knew that

38:07

your shabbiness betrayed you. It

38:09

was apparent for all to see. You

38:11

prayed for the winter evenings and

38:13

the kindly darkness. Darkness,

38:16

poverty's cloak, breeches,

38:18

backside patched and repatched, patches on

38:21

knees, on elbows, Jesus, all

38:23

bloody patches. God blimey! Let

38:26

date when Ma bought me a new pair of overalls,

38:28

he move it to himself. He

38:31

halted unconsciously by a street corner,

38:33

stood staring at nothing, seeing

38:36

himself on that occasion stalking the

38:38

streets, a beaming smile on his

38:40

lips, rejuvenated, full of confidence

38:42

and daring, unashamed,

38:44

thankful. I think

38:46

he's really good on poverty and what

38:48

poverty does to people and that sense

38:50

of feeling is somehow your fault and

38:53

the shame and all of that

38:55

stuff still feels to me like

38:58

incredibly contemporary. And

39:00

one of the things I kept picking up on was

39:02

this feeling like you get one life and

39:05

you know all of us speaking of this podcast, we're

39:07

lucky. We kind of get into these

39:09

lucky lives but there's loads

39:11

of people out there. You just have to like

39:13

kind of, well, you know. You

39:17

make your own look in this game, I'm sure I

39:19

have to say. But

39:21

that's what seems to just ring through the book

39:23

is like, you know, some people are just bordered

39:26

to these unlucky circumstances, difficult circumstances and how on

39:28

earth do you get your way out of that?

39:30

And there's a line that one of the characters

39:32

says, when they say, I wish I could have

39:34

my time over again, you know, just that thing

39:36

of, is this it? And that you just see

39:38

Harry come into that realization all the way through

39:40

it where it's like, oh my God, this is

39:42

just going to be, it's just going to get more difficult.

39:44

I'm not going to be able to have that lovely house

39:46

somewhere lovely, you know. The

39:48

thing about this novel I found fascinating is, you know,

39:51

the thing is the

39:53

fear of losing income

39:55

or falling into poverty underpins

39:58

so much fear. fiction, the

40:02

history of the novel, that's one

40:04

of the recurring themes of it

40:06

right the way through the Victorian

40:08

era into the early 20th century,

40:10

really until after the Second World

40:12

War, does that abate, but it's

40:14

a plot point you find repeatedly,

40:16

what will happen if

40:18

say, my

40:20

daughter doesn't get married? What will

40:22

happen if I lose this job

40:24

at the blacking factory? What

40:26

I think is really fascinating about Love on

40:28

the Doll is it extends

40:31

that idea to demonstrate

40:33

how a it affects

40:37

a whole stratum of

40:39

society in their relations to

40:41

one another and also

40:44

how difficult it is to get back,

40:46

to claw your way back. You only

40:48

have to fall once, as

40:51

it were, it seems

40:53

nearly impossible to work your

40:55

way back up. You can

40:57

only get back there through gambling,

41:01

or robbery, or

41:05

prostitution. The only people who are

41:07

doing all right there are the people who

41:10

cheat the system somehow, don't they? It's like that terrible sense

41:13

of the futility of having to pawn all

41:15

your possessions. The

41:24

guy in the pawn shop basically

41:27

owns your life. It says interest

41:29

on interest. They're so

41:31

deep in the mire of debt that not only

41:34

did Mr Price own their and their family's clothes,

41:36

but also the family income as well. They could

41:38

not have both at the same time. If they

41:40

had the family income in their purses, then Mr

41:43

Price had the family raiment and bedding. If

41:45

they had the family raiment and bedding, then Mr

41:47

Price had the family income. It's that cycle of

41:49

futility, which

41:52

I think he captures brilliantly. We've

41:55

got a clip here from the 1941 film adaptation

41:58

which ties in with that. Which

42:00

we ought to say, Love on

42:02

the Doll was a huge success as both a novel

42:04

and a play. And as

42:06

a result of that success, it was

42:08

blocked. The Lord Chamber's office or the

42:10

censorship or the census office, one or

42:13

both, refused to allow

42:15

the British Board of Film Censors, in

42:17

fact, refused to allow a

42:19

film to be made of Love on the Doll

42:22

in the 1930s because it

42:24

was feared. Effectively, it was rabble rousing

42:26

and seditionary. And it's permitted

42:28

in 1941 because of the war. It

42:32

can be used suddenly as propaganda. It

42:35

can be held up as what life used

42:37

to be like. But after this war,

42:39

we're fighting. We're fighting for a country

42:41

that won't be like this anymore. Yeah,

42:43

that's how it gets under the under

42:45

the wire and out into the world.

42:47

There's a Chris Hopkins website, wasn't it?

42:49

Where I think he said the Ministry

42:51

of Information actually asked for the film

42:53

to be made, they contacted Walter Greenwood

42:55

and said, Will you make this film

42:57

now? We're ready.

42:59

Now we're ready for you. So, yeah,

43:01

yes, as you say, the Britain we don't want. Yeah.

43:04

So this is a little clip from

43:06

the film we mentioned earlier, Coronation Street.

43:09

And here are several of

43:11

the of the habitués

43:14

of the pawn shop

43:17

who have having done their day's

43:19

business, have

43:21

come together just to have a little

43:23

nip of something to to see off

43:25

the cold. We mentioned

43:27

Coronation Street earlier. This will remind

43:29

those of a certain age very

43:31

forcefully of Ina Sharples and

43:34

Mini Caldwell in the snug of the

43:36

Rover's return. Here we go. And

43:42

me. Come on. I mean, I quit now.

43:44

Couldn't wait for us, could you? Sit down.

43:47

What might be three pennies? Somebody's

43:51

been doing themselves well. But

43:53

it was nearly four yesterday. So was my

43:55

old man. I don't know where he

43:57

gets his money from. Now, Mrs. Ball. Three

44:00

pen, as you said. I look sharp about

44:02

it, my throat's nearly cut. You can make

44:04

it six-benneth if you'll trust me for the other Frippen's. Can't

44:07

afford it, Mrs. Bull. Yeah, I wear we as

44:09

some folks know to make money. Agent

44:12

for Good Samaritan, forning for neighbours. Neighbours

44:14

are bludged, dead with two lions under

44:16

it, and selling nibs. Frippen's

44:19

please, Mrs. Bull. Now,

44:23

what about you, Alice? Time for me, dearie.

44:27

Oh, yes. How are we all this morning,

44:29

eh? Here, have a pinch of

44:31

birch, eh? What?

44:34

I don't know what's coming over, folks, these days.

44:36

Why, what's up now? Well, I remember when there's

44:38

hardly a day past without a confinement or a

44:40

laying out to be done. My youngins

44:42

aren't having children, as they ought. And

44:45

folks that die is being laid out for them

44:47

as they belong to, which weren't considered respectively the

44:49

old days. I tell you, if my poor old

44:51

mother was alive to see the gorns on in

44:53

the water today, she'd turn in her grave, so

44:55

she would. Ah, the world's

44:58

never been the same since the old queen

45:00

died. What's Gwen do you mean,

45:02

Mrs. Jike? Queen Victoria, of

45:04

course. Oh, er. Oh,

45:10

er. The film is

45:12

terrific and actually surprisingly unflinching.

45:14

Don't you think there is?

45:16

I mean, it's sort of...

45:19

They didn't pull their punches when they finally

45:21

got to make it. It focused

45:23

a lot more on Sally, I think, didn't it?

45:25

She's the sister, which I think was kind of

45:27

a wise choice. When I was watching the film,

45:30

I was like, oh, Harry

45:32

is probably the less interesting of the two aspects

45:34

in it, I think. And

45:36

also it has the benefit of Deborah Carr,

45:38

the young and incredible piece of Deborah Carr,

45:40

who's brilliant in it. And

45:44

there is a slight... There's a

45:46

sort of... There's a bit of propaganda creeps in at

45:49

the end where they're sort of looking at the grimy

45:52

streets of Hanky Park and say, you know,

45:54

there never needs to be another one day.

45:56

You know, people will start listening and there

45:58

will never be another. need to be a

46:00

hanky park anymore, which the book

46:02

doesn't give you that kind of easy, easy way

46:05

out. I

46:08

was also intrigued by Greenwood. And

46:10

we mentioned Andy earlier about why

46:12

Greenwood, you know, Orwell sort of

46:15

went road to Egan Pier became the kind

46:18

of the preferred. This is

46:20

how we like to read about our working class people.

46:24

Greenwood, Greenwood's book was really

46:26

successful, but Greenwood himself never really seemed to

46:28

have the profile of. It's

46:30

fascinating. And yet he wrote a lot of

46:32

novels and his books were well known. He

46:34

wrote 10 novels altogether, volume

46:37

of short stories, three volumes of

46:39

nonfiction, a dozen plays, half a

46:41

dozen screenplays. And he

46:43

tends to write about Australian

46:46

miners battling for their rights or

46:48

workers who take over a factory

46:51

or or a day in the life of

46:53

a pub. That's that's a good one. That's

46:55

that's very good. Saturday night at the Crown.

46:57

That's that's a play. I got the script

46:59

out of the library. One of his plays

47:01

made into a film called No

47:04

Cure for Love by Robert

47:06

Donat, famous, of course,

47:08

in Good from Goodbye, Mr. Chips. And

47:11

that film featured the young Dora Bryan

47:13

and his set in Salford. Of

47:15

course, in the early 60s, she returns

47:18

to Salford because she's in A Taste

47:20

of Honey, written by Sheila Delaney,

47:22

another great Salford based writer

47:24

and another great Salford

47:27

based text and another author

47:29

who struggled very much to

47:32

then escape from

47:35

their own success and the image that

47:37

the world of literature wanted to foist

47:40

onto them. I do

47:42

find this sometimes as a writer from

47:44

the north, a Newcastle writer, that sometimes

47:46

it's hard to not

47:48

be considered. I've just written something about Gordon Byrne

47:50

actually, who sort of said this sort of thing,

47:52

which is Gordon Byrne did seem to escape it.

47:54

Gordon Byrne was considered a writer as

47:57

opposed to a Newcastle writer, I found.

48:00

But I think oftentimes it is difficult to

48:02

escape the place that you're from. So when

48:04

George Orwell goes around places visiting them, he's

48:06

observing them as an outsider and then go

48:08

away, you know, write some

48:10

journalism about it. But everyone's always going

48:13

to think of what the Greenwood is. He's from the

48:15

place that he wrote about while being the observer dropping

48:17

in. I think that's a difficult thing to escape from.

48:20

I referred to you in inverted commas

48:22

at the start of this podcast as

48:24

a professional northerner. And I did say

48:26

that in the full knowledge that I

48:28

myself am a professional southerner. But yet

48:30

you never hear that phrase, do you

48:32

hear the professional southerner? Anyway,

48:34

I really wanted to talk about this book on

48:36

the podcast while they still tell him. Walter Greenwood

48:39

wrote, as we said, 10 novels

48:41

and a volume of short stories. And as far

48:44

as I can tell, nothing of

48:46

his is in print except Love on

48:48

the Dull. And it may even be

48:50

I'm not sure. Chris

48:52

Hopkins, if you're listening to this, you could

48:54

probably tell us that certainly the copyright on

48:56

some of these books is now. That's how

48:59

obscure Walter Greenwood has become. Nobody

49:01

quite knows who owns the copyright of quite

49:03

a lot of his work. Anyway,

49:05

from the library, I was able to get

49:07

a copy of his third novel, which

49:10

is called Standing Room Only. And much as

49:12

I enjoyed reading Love on the Dull, I

49:15

I standing room only

49:17

is absolutely wonderful. It's

49:19

so sad that this book is hard to come

49:21

by. I mean, you can probably get one second

49:23

hand or you can find it in your own

49:26

library. I hope perhaps it's a

49:28

book that he was reflecting

49:31

on his experience of becoming suddenly very

49:33

famous and very rich as a result

49:35

of writing Love on the Dull. And

49:39

Standing Room Only is

49:41

about a character called

49:43

Henry Ormerod, who

49:45

writes a play called

49:48

A Laugh in Every Line when

49:50

he writes that he's a shopper system in the north

49:53

of England. And he becomes

49:55

an overnight success on the London

49:57

stage, and it's a

49:59

book, incredibly. ahead of its time about

50:02

what success brings

50:04

him, which is a

50:07

great deal of cash and very

50:09

little satisfaction. It's very

50:11

funny. It's really fantastic on the

50:14

subject of what it was like

50:16

to be in the theatre world

50:18

in the 1930s. If

50:21

you're at all interested in

50:23

drama or the theatre or

50:25

showbiz agents or people drinking

50:27

points of mild while doing

50:29

deals behind one another's backs,

50:31

it's really, really good and

50:33

really funny. So that's called

50:35

Standing Rimoni and I'm going

50:37

to read you the stock

50:39

character of The Troubled Marxist

50:41

from this one. Okay,

50:45

his name is Morden and

50:48

he's a theatre producer. He's

50:50

currently discussing producing the

50:52

play A Laugh in Every Line

50:55

with Henry Ulmerod and his

50:57

new agent, whose name is Ellis. Morden

51:01

frowned. What a fool

51:04

he was. Wouldn't he ever

51:06

learn from experience? He ought

51:08

to know the theatre crowd by this time and

51:10

his knowledge ought to tell him that from a political

51:12

point of view, theatrical folk

51:14

were generally bored by his

51:16

or anybody's political opinions, which

51:19

was maddening. Was he

51:21

a misanthrope? No. He

51:24

believed in collective humanity, particularly when

51:26

he analyzed his motives. Why

51:28

need he be as he was? Why

51:30

didn't he do as the others

51:33

justify selfishness by the universal defence?

51:35

Oh, every man's got to be out for himself. If

51:37

he doesn't, somebody else will step in and do him

51:40

one. Easily. Contemptible

51:43

outlook. This profession.

51:46

This acting game. Why,

51:49

there wasn't a newcomer to it, but who

51:51

eternally cherished the thought and desire to be

51:53

the star. And what did that mean? Ah,

51:56

attention everybody. Look up at me. Am

51:59

I not? Not wonderful, don't you

52:01

all envy me, wouldn't you all

52:03

give much to occupy my position?

52:06

Bow down and worship and wish

52:08

yourselves were wearing my pretty clothes.

52:11

Oh, how few were in the profession for the love

52:13

of it." Ah, why

52:16

didn't he keep his mouth shut? Why

52:19

need he be continually revealing himself?

52:22

What was wrong with him? These

52:24

singular ideas, outlook and opinions,

52:26

they were Roger Morden alright. And

52:29

so was that sense of loneliness that

52:31

forever shadowed him. Keep his

52:33

mouth shut, he kinked. He

52:35

opened it in the hope that by advertising

52:38

his persuasions, he might encounter

52:40

kindred spirits. But he

52:42

moved in the wrong company. Individualists

52:45

encompassed him in his profession.

52:48

His ideas might have been

52:50

expressed in a foreign tone. He

52:53

was treated indulgently by such as

52:55

Ellis, as though he were

52:57

an extravagant practical joke.

53:03

I think that's utterly brilliant myself.

53:06

Kind of the self-loathing that's

53:08

coming out of Roger

53:11

Morden and by extension, I

53:13

think you could read that very easily as Walter

53:15

Greenwood's comment on what it was like to suddenly

53:17

move among the literati. I

53:19

think that's really fascinating. What

53:23

library did you get out for Andy? I

53:26

got it from the incredible

53:29

Liverpool Central Library. Liverpool Central Library,

53:31

okay. Because you try to buy

53:33

that book online and yeah, there's

53:35

some secondhand editions, but they're really

53:37

expensive. Well,

53:40

I'm just doing what a good capitalist would do Andrew, which

53:45

is pump the market up, having

53:49

bought up all the copies of Standing Room Only. But

53:51

if any of you want to read, no, I've only

53:53

got this one and this is going back to the

53:55

library tomorrow. So that is a

53:57

very, very... interesting

54:01

and powerful kind

54:03

of bit of writing. And I think everything

54:06

I've read about Greenwood makes me feel

54:08

that he kind of ended up on the

54:10

Isle of Man as a sort of tax exile, didn't he?

54:13

That's right, yeah. It's strange. He was

54:15

not welcomed into the club. You know,

54:17

he had friends in high places, Graham

54:19

Green, either sit well, what have you,

54:22

but he couldn't stay

54:24

there. And Chris Hopkins, and

54:26

conclusion is from studying his career, he

54:30

faced that barrier we've been talking about that it

54:32

was fine as long as he was writing about

54:34

the thing people thought

54:36

he knew about. But as soon as he stepped out

54:38

of what they thought was his familiar

54:41

zone, you know, it doesn't,

54:43

it's interesting, isn't it? It's not something that

54:45

we would criticize necessarily, or would have been

54:48

criticized in that time, you know,

54:50

an upper class person like

54:52

George Orwell looking down the

54:54

classes. But Greenwood

54:56

looking up, you know,

54:58

he should know his place that seems to

55:00

be the message there as

55:02

it is so often with class, you

55:05

should know your place. Chris

55:07

Hopkins has got I think

55:09

an absolutely exemplary website, which

55:11

is amazing, which is called

55:14

Walter Greenwood, not just love on the dull dog.

55:19

It's great, isn't it? As john

55:21

said, this website is exemplary. If

55:23

you like Walter Greenwood, you can't

55:25

read any of his books. But

55:27

you can look at Chris's website.

55:29

Amazing. And it contains things like

55:32

articles such as Walter Greenwood,

55:35

vegetarian messenger. Yeah. That's

55:38

very good. And there's a brilliant

55:40

bit called Walter Greenwood's tie. Did you?

55:42

Yeah, I love I love that. It's really

55:44

terrific. That website is great. It is.

55:46

It's a treasure trove and done with

55:48

with great love and and, and

55:51

a kind of a degree of that sort of zeal. He

55:54

doesn't want Walter Greenwood to be to

55:57

slip under the under the kind of the waves of great

56:00

unknowing and it's necessary because like you say

56:02

it's really hard to find out Anything

56:05

else, you know all his books are like hard to get

56:07

hold of and he's not been written about so much recently

56:09

and stuff You know, I'm really surprised

56:11

well I'm not really surprised

56:13

if the copyright of these things is indeed

56:16

difficult to come by or find out I

56:18

suppose that does partly explain why? Given

56:21

nearly every other old book is reappearing in

56:23

some form or another at the moment Greenwood

56:25

remains Yeah, completely unavailable. It's

56:27

very strange. But anyway, he seems

56:30

ripe for rediscovery does indeed He

56:32

does indeed and do you have

56:34

another little bit you would like

56:36

to read us? Sure the

56:38

em well, I wanted to read out a little bit

56:40

from them Sally actually because I

56:44

Don't think I think the first time I read her You know

56:46

I said I was kind of on the dole in the year

56:48

that I read it and and it was all about Harry to

56:50

me then and Then I was when

56:52

I was rereading it it kind of like, you

56:54

know Sally just seems like the dominant character now

56:56

like the most interesting thing going on with it

56:59

was the end particularly and so

57:01

yeah This is here where she's considering

57:04

her future with Larry who she intends

57:06

to marry At

57:08

one time not very long ago. She had

57:10

found pleasure in dancers and the picture theaters

57:13

What had come over her those diversions gave

57:16

only a transitory pleasure She

57:18

saw herself returning home when pictures of

57:20

dance were done returning to the drearyness

57:22

of number 17 North Street It

57:25

wasn't that kind of life she wanted. She

57:27

wanted something real and permanent Not

57:29

the mere whiling away of time watching

57:31

flickering shadows on a screen or the

57:33

trumpery gaiety of a danceroom She

57:36

wanted Larry in a home of her own drearyness

57:38

of number 17 North Street as

57:41

stupendous suspicion pounced upon her the

57:44

drearyness of her home represented marriage To

57:47

her father and mother both of whom before

57:49

their marriage were surely have been as she

57:51

was now Desirous of

57:53

homes of their own. They now had

57:55

obtained it and to her it

57:57

represented something that filled her with overwhelming

57:59

drearyness Could it be

58:01

possible that Larry, in his condemnation of

58:04

marriage, was really suggesting that her mother's

58:06

and father's married life with all its

58:08

scratchings and scrapings was only removed from

58:10

a newly married couple's experiences by the

58:12

matter of a few years? Her mother

58:14

and father had never been far away from

58:16

North Street on even a day's holiday since

58:18

their honeymoon. Hardcastle, whose

58:20

her father himself was a smouldering

58:22

volcano ready to erupt the moment

58:24

she or Harry suggested expenditure on

58:26

clothes. Do you think bloody money grows

58:29

with trees? He was worried

58:31

eternally over money, and Larry had said, it isn't

58:34

this marriage business that matters, it's this

58:36

damned poverty, doing without the things

58:38

that make life worthwhile. Was

58:40

this understanding? She crushed

58:42

all her thoughts. I want Larry. I

58:45

want Larry, she defied herself. Yep.

58:50

Well, whether or not she gets Larry or something, you'll

58:52

have to read the book or

58:58

listen to the play or watch the

59:00

film. I think the Factory Whistle has

59:02

indeed blown up.

59:07

It's time for us to punch our cards and

59:10

say farewell to the 1930s. Huge thank

59:12

you to Andrew for this great choice

59:14

of book and

59:16

to Nicky for making us sound as

59:18

clear as the work siren. If you

59:21

would like show notes with clips, links

59:23

and suggestions for further reading for this

59:25

show and the 203 that we've already

59:27

recorded, please visit our website at backlisted.fm.

59:31

If you want to buy the books discussed on this

59:33

or any of our other shows, visit

59:35

our shop at bookshop.org and choose

59:37

Backlisted as your bookshop. And

59:39

we're still keen to hear from you on Twitter,

59:42

Facebook, Instagram, Blue

59:45

Sky and

59:47

genuinely postcards

59:50

because we

59:52

received a communication this week

59:55

from Fresno, California,

59:58

from an And I apologize,

1:00:00

Grey or Mary, if you're listening

1:00:02

to this, from Grey or Mary

1:00:05

Taylor. We can't quite read your

1:00:07

writing, but thanks very much. John,

1:00:09

what does the postcard say? Well,

1:00:13

it's a postcard, I should say, of

1:00:15

a rather fetching-looking Gary Snyder, the American

1:00:17

poet, posing in Japanese clothes in his

1:00:19

garden in 1963 in Japan. And

1:00:22

it says, it was dated 15th

1:00:25

of December, 2023, and it says,

1:00:28

Dear Andy, John and Nicky, at the

1:00:30

end of the Basil Bunting episode, Andy

1:00:32

said we could get in touch via

1:00:34

postcard. So I am calling his bluff.

1:00:39

Best regards, Grey or Mary

1:00:41

Taylor, Fresno, California. So isn't

1:00:43

that brilliant? There you go. Thank you. So,

1:00:46

of course, if you want

1:00:48

to hear Backlisted early and

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ad-free, you can subscribe to

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that's probably a better investment than putting a

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of you who are enjoyed our What Have You

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Been Reading slot, that's where you'll now find it.

1:01:19

It's an hour of tunes, musings,

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and superior book chat. Plus,

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lock listeners get their names read out accompanied

1:01:25

by lashings of praise and gratitude like this.

1:01:28

Isabel Moreland, thank you. Christian

1:01:30

Powers, thank you. Julie Sternberg,

1:01:33

thank you. Claire Petri,

1:01:35

thank you. Judith

1:01:37

Lawson, thank you. Falk Settey, thank

1:01:39

you. Anne Dunlop,

1:01:41

thank you. Paul Gremer, thank

1:01:43

you. Robin Gustafson, thank you. Thank

1:01:46

you all. Thank you so much for your support. And

1:01:49

one thing I wanted to ask you, it's been

1:01:51

really bugging me through the whole podcast is what

1:01:53

did you read at your wedding? Can't

1:01:56

have been the bit where they say, come on, we might as

1:01:58

well get you to... over and done

1:02:00

with. It

1:02:04

was it was a bit between Harry and Helen and

1:02:07

I mean, God, I just wanted to

1:02:09

read anything from this book at the wedding and you're going

1:02:11

through it, you're going, well, that's nothing to do with weddings.

1:02:13

That's nothing to do with it. And it was just some

1:02:15

bit. I think they got on the hill and

1:02:18

she starts and they

1:02:20

talk about their future or something like that.

1:02:22

I mean, it honestly, John, it did not

1:02:24

fit a wedding at all. It was terrible.

1:02:26

And everyone must have been sat there just

1:02:29

going, these people are just mad. Andrew, what's

1:02:31

your wife called? Cat. Cat.

1:02:34

If you're listening to this, send us a postcard

1:02:36

and see if it matches or anything. Brilliant.

1:02:39

Thanks, everybody. Bye. See you, everyone.

1:02:41

Bye. Bye.