Dosh

by Robert Swindells

“We’re Push. We practically run this town, and if you think a bunch of kids are going to change that, you’re crazy.” When the students at Cottoncroft Comprehensive form Pull, a group dedicated to challenging Push’s thuggery, things start to get nasty. But then Push try a new sinister racket – and Pull have the chance to catch them in the act… This Carnegie-Medal winning author deals vividly but sensitively with peer pressure, violence, drugs and crime. Hardback 200pp

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 23, 1999

About the author

Robert Swindells was born in Bradford in 1939, the eldest of five children. He left the local Secondary Modern School at fifteen to work as a copy holder on the local newspaper. At seventeen he enlisted in the RAF and served for three years, two in Germany. On being discharged he worked as a clerk, engineer and printer until 1969 when he entered college to train as a teacher having obtained five 'O' levels at night-school. His first book 'When Darkness Comes' was written as a college thesis and published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1972. In 1980 he gave up teaching to write full time. He likes travelling and visits many schools each year, talking and reading stories to children. He is the secutatry of his local Peace Movement group. Brother in the Land is his first book for Oxford University Press. He is married with two grown-up daughters and lives in Bradford.

Author description taken from Brother in the Land.

Reviews

[Tiana Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dosh by Robert Swindells reminded me very much of Lord of the Flies. It drew on a similar concepts such as children playing adults, that power corrupts, that the oppressed will always rise up eventually. While this is a book for teenagers, the themes that shine through relate to the real world and what social, political and economic issues await those teenagers when they are out in the world, fending for themselves.

The plot is about a bunch of secondary school students doing part-time work to make dosh (money) and them being bullied and preyed on my a gang of children who lean on them for a percentage of their earnings. If they pay then there is no trouble, if they don't, then they get threatened, bullied, mugged or beaten. But like all stories of the working class, they get sick of it and they rise up.

The story follows multiple characters and really fleshes them out in a way that they are all like someone you know, a person who defends someone else, the person who encourages everyone to fight back, the person who quits, the badie who has had a bad life, the rich person oppressing the poor and so on. Each character is rich in description and detail and each character has a part to play in the way the story turns out. Some parts are shocking, some are sad and some are heartwarming. Definitely worth a read.