Working Lives

by David Hall

In the early 1950s Britain was still the most urbanized and industrialized nation in the world, a global power in shipbuilding and the leading European producer of coal, steel, cars and textiles. For the many millions of men and women hard at work during that time, an infernal landscape of smoke-blackened factories, towering slag heaps and fiery furnaces dominated their lives. From the deep docks and towering cranes of the Tyneside shipyards to the mills and chimneys of Lancashire and beyond, Working Lives takes us right to the heart of those industrial centres through the words of those who were there.

Drawn together from hundreds of hours of first-hand interviews, Working Lives is a unique collection of oral testimonies from workers whose stories might not otherwise have been mill girls who risked life and limb in dusty, noisy weaving sheds; steel workers who wrestled sheets of white-hot metal in the blistering heat of the foundries; and miners who hewed coal by hand on filthy, cramped, claustrophobic coalfaces.

Local industries shaped these workers’ entire lives but also gave them a sense of pride, identity and belonging. As they look back on the dangers and hardships of their jobs, and the place of industry in their close-knit communities, these fascinating voices paint a vivid and moving portrait of working life in Britain not to be forgotten.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, British Literature

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 19, 2012

About the author

An awkward interview
'So here's your opportunity to promote yourself. Go sell yourself to the readers.'
'Umm...I'm not good at that chest pumping stuff. I'm British.'
'Okay. Well, you don't have to 'chest pump', just tell us a little about yourself. Who is David Hall?'
'He's British.'
'Yesss, you've mentioned that. Anything else?'
'Such as?'
'Well, like where do you live?'
'In Britain.'
'Hmm, you're not really helping the reader to get a sense of you as an author. Tell us about the types of stories that you like to write.'
'Oh that's easy. Anything. well, almost anything. Nothing gory, I don't have the stomach for it'
'Right. But you must have a preference for a genre.'
'Oh you mean like ticky boxes... I see... then in that case, I like to write romantic-comedy-suspense stories. Short stories. Yes, definitely romantic-comedy-suspense short stories.'
'Okay, now we're getting somewhere. So that latest book of yours...err...what's it called again?'
'Love Line.'
'Love Line. Of course. Why should readers buy Love Line? What are they missing out on?'
'They are missing out on a romantic-comedy-suspense story. Sorry, short story.'
'Right. But isn't it a bit odd a man writing in the romantic genre?'
'No stranger than you asking that question in 2015.'
'Alrighty then, is that the time? We really need to wrap this up. Anything else you want to say to your readers?'
'Yes. Love Line will make you laugh, probably reach for a glass of wine, and give you goose-bumps with a delightful twist. I am not responsible for you spilling your wine at that time. Thank you.'
'There, that wasn't too bad.'
'Hmmm.'

Reviews

[Kazimiera pendrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really great read

[Jaffareadstoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The forgotten voices of Britain’s post-war working class.

I was born into a working class family in the industrial North of England, so the stark picture of the three coal miners who gaze enigmatically out from the front cover of Working Lives, is a scene which is entirely familiar to me. As a child, I watched as my coal miner father washed off the worst of the coal dust in a bucket of water in the backyard, and I grew up with tall tales of shot firing, coal seams and underground explosions.

David Hall’s interesting and informative social history explores the lives of the working classes in post-war Britain. The inherent danger of the northern coal fields and the noise and dust of the Lancashire cotton weaving sheds formed a landscape which was difficult to escape. And, likewise, the vivid descriptions of the frenetic activity of the North Eastern ship builder, through to the heat and bellow of the Yorkshire steel works, gives the narrative a uniquely individual voice, which neither glorifies this post-war period as halcyon days, nor does it allow the facts to outweigh personal perspectives. The anecdotal stories which are interspersed amongst the factual evidence are fascinatingly poignant and are reminiscent of long lost industrial pride.

The five main chapters are well divided with some minimal overlapping as one industry is occasionally reliant on another. These sections explore in great detail the effect that these industries had on the communities they served, and the structure and political ramifications as Britain became the most urbanized industrial nation in the world.

As someone who was born well into this post war industrial period, I am always rather shocked to consider that this is now seen largely as a historical period, but there is no doubt that we owe a huge debt of honour to the sagacity of those intrepid workers who maintained the status quo during this uniquely industrial time in our nation’s history.


In this post-war examination , David Hall has done them proud.


I read this as part of the Transworld Historical Reading Challenge 2013

[Tobias · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book uses dozens of oral testimonies to tell the story of the proud workers of the 1950s in the largely disappeared heavy industries of Wales, the North the Midlands and Scotland: Steel, Shipbuilding, Cotton and Textiles, Coal and Heavy Engineering. What is striking is the gruelling, heavy physical nature of work in those industries; the terrible conditions; the horrific exposure to pollution and toxic chemicals and the blithe attitude to health and safety and frequent appalling industrial accidents. The speed and the extent of the decline of these industries so that very little of them remain today is also shocking from a Britain which in the 1950s was still the most industrialised country on the planet. Today the memories and machines of this era are becoming the stuff of distant folk memory and of industrial archaeology.

[Lynn P · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book, full of real life stories and anecdotal tales. It isn’t all down the mines and in the factories, there are some good tales from people who worked in offices too.
It’s good that David Hall has interviewed these people and recorded their stories for prosperity and future generations to realise how life was.

[Andrew M Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite fascinating, but after a while becomes tiring; mainly because the anecdotal subject matter is so grim, you go from one grim experience to another, it's quite disgusting how recently people worked in such awful and brutal conditions. Those who now sit on their old money earned on the blood sweat and tears of these people should be ashamed.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This clearly borrows largely from "Austerity Britain" and there is nothing wrong with that. It reads like a slimmed down version of that highly informative tome. It lends voice to the Post War working class and the often semi-Dickensian conditions they still had to endure in spite of "winning a war!".

There are plenty of gritty first hand accounts here to strike horror, fear and bewilderment into any reader. You come away with a deep sympathy and respect for the millions of people who lived like this on top of coming out of such a cruel war. A good read.