Recently out, and as readable as his earlier Austerity Britain is David Kynaston’s Modernity Britain: 1957-59.

A few highlights…

“In theory, there was ‘parity of esteem’ between the roughly 1,200 grammar schools and 3,800 secondary moderns. In practice, not only did most people view the secondary moderns as vastly inferior, but there was a shocking relative shortfall in their resourcing. ‘It is likely’ noted John Vaizey in his 1958 treatise The Costs of Education, ‘that the average Grammar school child receives 170 per cent more per year, in terms of resources, than the average Modern school child. …The gulf in expectations was even greater. Surveying in 1961 that year’s school-leavers from a semi-skilled and unskilled background at five Leicestershire schools (two grammars and three secondary moderns), William Liversidge found that 93 per cent of the grammar boys anticipated moving into a higher class of employment than their parents – whereas only 18 per cent of the secondary modern boys did. ‘The general conclusion … is one of a startlingly accurate appraisal of life chances by the children … a shrewd appreciation of the social and economic implication of their placing within the educational system.’ … Social class … did much to determine outcomes within grammars. In 1954 an official report on Early Leaving found that whereas children from the semi-skilled and unskilled working class represented over 20 per cent of grammar school intakes, but the sixth form that proportion was down to barely 7 per cent.” (pp. 218-219)

“On the morning of 5 December, two days after the pit-closures announcement, Macmillan inaugurated the 8.5-mile Preston Bypass, Britain’s first stretch of motorway, and, subsequently, part of the M6. ‘In the years to come,’ the PM declared, ‘the county and the country alike may look at the Preston Bypass – a fine thing in itself but a finer thing as a symbol – as a token of what is to follow’: pressing a button, he cut the traditional tape by remote control … he was driven along in a Rolls-Royce Landau.” (p. 259)

“Shortly after Christmas the government announced the full convertability of sterling held by non-residents … Although the announcement itself provoked no great controversy, Anthony Crosland would state the potential downside forcibly in a Third Programme talk in early February. Claiming (probably correctly) that the ‘strongest pressure’ behind the decision had come from the Bank of England and the City, wanting convertability ‘in order to enhance the position of London as a world banker and financial centre,’ he called it a ‘disastrous approach’ – given not only that ‘the financial earnings of the City from overseas business are trivial in relation to our balance of payments’ but that ‘every step in the direction [i.e. of financial liberalisation, ultimately leading to the end of exchange controls] increases our vulnerability to speculation’. And: ‘The really serious thing about all this is that our domestic policies are increasingly dictated by the holders of sterling – by bankers in Zurich and London, by speculators all over the world, and by traders using sterling as an international trading currency. These people are not, unfortunately, as the City likes to think they are, highly rational and sophisticated judges of the true state of the British economy. On the contrary, they are often naive, volatile and ill-informed…Yet the fear of what they may do to sterling increasingly influences our Bank rate policy, our rate of economic expansion, our wages policy, and … even what taxation policy we are allowed to pursue.” (pp. 262-3)
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First published on Blogcritics

As a resident of the central London district of Somers Town, which I often describe as the “last poor area community left in central London”, when I heard that there was a new novel, The Streets, by Anthony Quinn, set in the Victorian district, based on voluminous research, well I couldn’t resist.

Of course when I say “poor” today, I mean an area that’s been resistant to the gentrification of Bloomsbury to the south and Camden Town to the north, largely as a result of the fact that it’s nearly all council flats, built from the Twenties and Thirties onwards, replacing many of the dwellings in which the characters of Quinn’s novel reside. Extreme poverty of the Victorian kind is not the common way of things today, for all that there’s increasing desperation and struggle.

That Victorian reality is something that Quinn brings vividly to life, in a manner that suggests extensive research. One minor story in the tale is of a desperate widowed mother, clinging to a home that’s been condemned for demolition. Her fate is likely to stick with you, and has the ring of truth that suggests extensive browsing through historic newspapers.

That’s really the strength of this novel. Quinn has taken a fictional character, a young man from the provinces trying to make his way in big London town, of comfortable but fairly modest background, and by giving him a rich godfather, and a job as a poverty researcher, allowed him to roam widely, sometimes into the wealthy west, but mostly around the poor of Somers Town, who at first seem to him like another race altogether.

The story of his researches, based on a composite of Henry Mayhew and Charles Booth, both familiar to anyone with a passing acquaintance with Victorian London, provides a comfortable frame for the novel.

So top marks for the textures, the tastes, the stories of Somers Town life, and for interesting, involving characters. I’ll admit I particularly took to Roma, the sister of the coster, Jo, who provides David Wildeblood’s route into the community, a fine singer with a sad but unsurprisingly Victorian back story that gradually unfolds.

The plot, where it departs from history, however, is a bit on the clunky side. Everything is neat, fits into the accepted romance frame, and left this reader a little cold. Tragedy tick, romance tick, I just felt I could see the author tugging at the strings.

Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed reading the novel, and you don’t have to live in Somers Town to appreciate the setting and detail. If you’ve any interest in Victorian London, you’ll enjoy The Streets.

Other views: Telegraph, Observer, Independent.