The group convened in January
2013 to discuss J.B. Priestley’s record of an "English Journey" undertaken in the
autumn of 1933, almost eighty years ago. That journey was suggested by the
publisher, Gollancz, and their left wing views could be said to have coloured
the excellent prose contained within the book. Not only could it be said, but
it was said by more than one group member. Alas, not everything of note said by
members of the group is recorded on this occasion because your humble scribe
was unaware of his necessary recording role until an hour of discussion had
ensued and someone noticed the lack of scribbling. What perceptive observations
have been lost? (Perceptive? you must be joking, Ed.) Hence, this month’s episode is compiled from
ill-remembered and prejudiced views, and the later contributed notes of other
attendees.
In his summary, ‘To the End’,
Priestley speaks of three Englands. Old England is defined by the cathedrals
and minsters, the manor houses and inns, and quaint highways and byways.
Nineteenth Century England is formed from coal, iron, steel, cotton, wool and
railways. He suggests that ‘Merrie England” cannot be improved upon, at least
with rose tinted spectacles. However, he does point out that there was a
substantial exodus to the industrial, revolutionary cities in the nineteenth
century. Vote with your feet, as they say. His third England was more
universal, possibly born in America, of cinemas and Woolworth’s, of the city
bypass and semi-detached bungalow, and so on. As he points out perceptively
elsewhere in the book, the coming of improved transport and communications may
signal the death of individual and regional character. When talking of East
Durham, he talks of its strange isolation. ‘Nobody goes to East Durham’, and by
implication, no-one who lives there can afford to leave. As elsewhere in the
book he talks of the harsh northern environment either bringing its inhabitants
to despair, or blunting their senses and clouding the mind. This is certainly
harsh, and perhaps over-stated. As he observes, regional theatres flourish in
the most unlikely settings, and there are merits in the enterprise and
ingenuity of the sons of the industrial revolution that is not always echoed in
the gentrified classes to the south of Sheffield.
Speaking of East Durham, rarely
can a book have been so well illustrated by its accompanying photographs; the
Bill Brandt picture of the brick house sheltering under the coal slag heap with
the heavy machinery of the pulley system perched on its top is magnificent and
such photographs can be as influential as the text. Although written eighty
years ago, this at least was familiar from my own childhood, when part of
Lanarkshire was dominated by these spoils from deep mining. However, not
everyone had the same edition, and some were poorly illustrated by modern
equivalents. If you buy this book, go for the Folio Society edition of 1997,
and check the photographs before you buy! Of course, the power of the image is
so dominant now. Think for example of the citizen in front of the tanks in
Tiananmen Square.
However, our discussion became
less centred on the observation, and more on the causes of what was observed,
in a historical and industrial or business context. Of course, English Journey
is in itself an influential work and a precursor of the Mass Observation
Project that followed, which we read about earlier in “Nella Last’s War”.
Although titled an English Journey, many pointed out that it was incomplete.
Priestley himself acknowledged that he had not completed the task, and had
failed to meet his original intentions to be more comprehensive. Rather, than
three Englands, a majority though that this was really about two Englands, and
that Priestley betrayed his left wing sympathies in suggesting that the
industrial north had been betrayed by the allegedly (by some, not all)
unproductive, parasitic south of bankers and other financial contributors to
the British economy. To what extent was the plight of the North the fault of
poor management by its own community, to what extent due to southern
exploitation? Was it due primarily to the location of the great natural
resource of coal, which spawned the associated industries? Was it due to the
inventiveness of the northern mind, which we considered earlier in “The Lunar
Men”, unallied to business control? These are difficult questions to answer
only in the context of this possibly biased book.
In defence of the South, one
pointed out that the GDP was greater than the North in 1933, and that this was
not dominated by the financial sector and other service industries, citing
large aircraft manufacturers west of London as an example. While he appreciated
Priestley’s descriptions of England in 1933, it was a partial account in that
it neglected to cover London and the south east which were doing relatively
well economically. By 1933 the recession was over and GDP growth for the UK as
a whole between 1934 and 1939 was 4%, a much better recovery than we have
managed this recession. Would social conditions not follow economic
improvement? If WWII hadn’t come, would this recovery have continued? Has
anything changed? Mind you, there are lies, damned lies and ....
Alas, no-one can be sure, so we
await the thesis on contributions to the GDP then and now to ascertain the
truth. Certainly, what the book does do is contrast the plight of the working
class “up North”, where it is indisputably “grim”, with the rather diverse
activities in the South and South West, for example in the description of his
acquaintance on the coach to Southampton, who had in his varied CV experience
of hairdressing, raincoats, wireless sets, and tea rooms. As Priestley
observed, new businesses were springing up all around London, and so
contributing to the aforementioned GDP in the more pleasant surroundings of the
M4 (later) corridor. The industrial heartland was shifting from North to South,
to be founded not on coal, but on semiconductors and plastics.
Published in 1934, there seemed
little sense of awareness of events elsewhere in Europe, but then this is an
English Journey and perhaps this reflects the times. There are references to
the previous war. His time in the trenches obviously had a major effect on him.
This was seen in the moving description of the battalion reunion, one of the
strongest sections, and in the imagery he uses throughout the book. Yet even at
the reunion it moves on to social comment. “We could drink to the tragedy of
the dead ....this tragicomedy of the living, who had fought for a world that
did not want them ..... to exchange their uniforms for rags.” Again, there is
ambiguity in whether the commercial and social observations are a fault of
economics, of history, or of individual lassitude. “It is hard to look at small shops with anything but
disgust. They are slovenly, dirty and inefficient. They only spoil the goods
they offer for sale especially if these goods, as they usually are, happen to
be foodstuffs. One large clean shed, a decent warehouse, would be better than
these pitiful establishments.”
Time for a digression and a
sideways swipe at Edinburgh’s current Tram Saga. Priestley states that “the
people show a sound instinct when they desert the tramway for any other and
newer kind of conveyance. There is something depressing about the way in which
a tram lumbers and groans and grinds along like a sick elephant.” Whoa, cowboy! Maybe Priestley was
over-impressed by the wonderful motor coach, maybe he hadn’t tried to crawl
past the illegally parked residents of Edinburgh tethering their own elephants
(sorry, 4x4s) outside the local private school. Let’s get back to the point!
Some of us were un-attracted by
his judgemental style, common these days amongst newspaper columnists,
certainly. The default mode is belligerence and knocking down straw men, and is
sometimes downright rude. Consider for example his comments on the whist drive:
he was rude if honest(?) about participants (all ugly); patronising (but all
such decent working class people); and sneering (unlike bridge players in the
south). He made many sweeping
generalisations, e.g. on the Irish, “ignorance and dirt and drunkenness and
disease”. Not just the Irish. “In those days you did not sing the woes of
distant Negroes, probably reduced to such misery by too much gin or cocaine. I
am not sure of the new Blackpool of the weary negroid ditties.” He was similarly
dismissive of the working classes and their football, but then perhaps even
Priestley was too young in 1934 to have seen a Hibernian cup win. One of us
opined that Orwell’s tone was equally passionate, but less judgemental, and so
preferable. Some of this may be a deliberate persona Priestley is cultivating -
the cantankerous, plain-dealing West Yorkshire man. This was unattractive, in
one view.
Turning again to the book’s
origins, more than one thought the book biased by the political agenda of both
author and publisher. It was said
that Priestley’s “English Journey” and Orwell’s “Road to Wigan Pier” hugely
influenced the Labour Party and popular perception of the 1930’s as a decade of
depression. A historian liked and applauded the book, particularly the aforementioned
regimental reunion, but had serious reservation about its influence (innocently
or politically motivated?) on perceptions of the 1930s. To draw an analogy, he
suggested that Neville Chamberlain’s failures in dealing with foreign affairs
have also affected his reputation as an effective Chancellor.
And so we, too, moved “to the
end”. I think there was universal agreement about the excellence of the writing
and the evocation of time and place. He used language very effectively – a
writer at the height of his powers. Sometimes, the text was genuinely moving. Normally an
outsider, it was felt that he wrote quite differently when an insider as in
Bradford. However, there was much disagreement about the independence of the
view and the accuracy of rendition. One quoted a comment that this was “a
succession of moods rather than a succession of places.” Again, we could all
agree that this was not an unbiased coverage of all Britain (omitting London
and its environs); his insight into industrial development is uneven. Not
everyone felt that this was necessarily a fault. Perhaps the North, in
particular, was a far country of which the more affluent South, where policy
was made, was not wholly aware. He was at his best when he was being
descriptive, analytical, or anecdotal, at his worst when he was being
judgemental, patronising or pushing a pre-devised agenda. The book is a good,
if biased, historic record, and important in developing social concern for
problems of unemployment and industrial squalor. There are some real flashes of
insight, both into people and into the way some places have developed. Overall it
was a fascinating book of abiding interest.
Yours in social justice,
TINA.
