Up The Junction

by Nell Dunn

A succ'es de scandale when it was published in England in 1963, Up the Junction is a high-voltage, gorgeously visceral collection of portraits of working-class women's lives, finally restored to print

Nell Dunn's scenes of London life, as it was lived in the early Sixties in the industrial slums of Battersea, have few parallels in contemporary writing. The exuberant, uninhibited, disparate world she found in the tired old streets and under the railway arches is recaptured in these closely linked sketches; and the result is pure alchemy. In the space of 120 perfect pages, we witness clip-joint hustles, petty thieving, candid sexual encounters, casual birth and casual death. She has a superb gift for capturing colloquial speech and the characters observed in these pages convey that caustic, ironic, and compassionate feeling for life, in which a turn of phrase frequently contains startling flashes of poetry. Battersea, that teeming wasteland of brick south of the Thames, has found its poet in Nell Dunn and Up the Junction is her touchingly truthful and timeless testimonial to it.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, London, Classics, British Literature, Historical Fiction, Novels

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Nell Mary Dunn (born 9 June 1936) is an English playwright, screenwriter and author. She is known especially for a volume of short stories, Up the Junction, and a novel, Poor Cow.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
A collection of short stories published in 1963 which later became a TV play and a film; neither were as hard-hitting as the book. It is set in the Battersea area of London and the Junction in the title is Clapham railway junction which is close by. The title has come to mean other things since then; remember the Squeeze song. It is an examination of the lives of working class women at a time when homosexuality and abortion were still illegal. The narrative is dialogue led, very raw and shocking and driven by an elusive narrator who is almost absent. The book is a series of vignettes which are dialogue led and linked by a number of female characters. There is no judgement by the narrator and the reader is left to make a judgement (or not).
There is a strong comic feel to it all, but the themes are grim and distressing at times;
“Sylvie pisses in the road. “Quick Sylvie there’s a car comin’ in ter park!” The headlights beam. “Pull yer drawers up!”
“It’s alright” She jumps to her feet, “I don’t wear no drawers Friday nights, it’s ‘andy””
And this;
“Finally the ambulance arrived. They took Rube away, but they left behind the baby, which had now grown cold. Later Sylvie took him, wrapped in the Daily Mirror and threw him down the toilet.”
The women work in a sweet factory and we hear about their lives and loves, the struggle to manage and the fecklessness of their men. It’s all about survival and most purchases are on HP and the Tally Man visits every week (these days we call them loan sharks). You hang onto an unfaithful husband because the alternative means going on National Assistance and starving. There is a sense from the women of sexual freedom, but this is before the pill and the price is pregnancy and a back street abortion, and the descriptions are graphic. The women are much more powerful than the men, and although they are prone to receiving violence from men, they are a community and look after each other.
There is a mix of traditional and modern in the views expressed and the women are focussed on trying to get as much out of life as possible;
“what you don’t get caught for you’re entitled to do”. It’s not Sex in the City, but it’s not far off and it’s a long way from Edith Wharton!
It is powerful stuff, but it is important to note that it is observation. Nell Dunn comes from an upper class background. She is descended from Charles the Second, via Nell Gwyn however. Her grandfather was the fifth Earl Rosslyn; well known in popular song for being the “Man who broke the Bank at Monte Carlo”, who subsequently lost all he gained. The upbringing was wealthy but bohemian and Dunn left her convent school at fourteen. She moved into the Battersea area with her husband Jeremy Sandford (later known for Cathy Come Home), and worked in the factory she described.
For me this puts the novel in the same league as Orwell’s observations, but it is well observed and still has the power to shock. There are references to the recently arrived West Indian immigrants which are in keeping with the strength of the language in the rest of the novel and may reflect the language of the time, but are offensive. However the men are the principal villains, but necessary ones because the women are rather fond of the functions they perform.
This is easily readable in one sitting; the cityscape it is set in is one of dereliction; the slums were being demolished and there was still a lot of destruction from the war. It is wonderfully vivid and again many thanks to virago.

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sped through this in one evening, after trying desperately to find something short and easy to attempt to read with my ongoing dizziness.
I like the film of this, it's fun watching London in the 60s. The books isn't quite as good but still a pleasant read written in a series of vignettes about friends who work in factories during the week and go 'Up the Junction' at the weekend to the clubs and pubs and bars. The dialogue is a bit jumbled but overall an okay read.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the British "kitchen sink drama" era, both in books and movies. I love the aesthetic and the working class stories.
I had previously seen the movie of this a long time ago but i've wanted to read the book for ages.
Basically this is a collection of loosely linked short stories set in the East End of London in the early 1960's. It was a unique time culturally, the older generations had been through the depression and the war and were mentally somewhat stuck in that. The younger generations were wanting more out of life. Things were starting to change but the pull of the past was still powerful, it was after Elvis but before The Beatles, the British Empire still technically existed but everyone could see it was fading fast, old morals, especially sexual morals, were still held by the majority of the population but the pill was on its way.
These stories are from the rough working class of London at the time and mainly from female perspectives so you get a working class woman's views on things like sex, abortion and marriage.
This is not just great British literature, it is great working class literature and i'd recommend it to everyone.
PS: It helps if you can read the whole thing in a Cockney accent.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ultimate exposé of 1960s slags. You know what it feels like to be dumb and poor in 60s London when you wrap your aborted foetus in a newspaper and fling it down the toilet. Grim and necessarily unsexy.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oddly enough, I read this book in 2015, and I have no memory of it. "Up The Junction" is a remarkable collection of short stories that take place in London, specifically the district Battersea. Nell Dunn is a magnificent writer. I never heard of her, until I looked her up, and I'm amazed that she was from the upper-class. Her understanding of the local language in Battersea is pure poetry to my ears. The stories are mostly in dialogue and all deal with the everyday life of its citizens. Lust, work, abortions, young tuffs, bored females - it's here in splendid black n' white imagery. A must-read for the London obsessed, especially the city in the early 1960s.

[Josephine (Jo) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a little book of short stories that blend together to give a view of the Wandsworth area of London in the 1960's. The Junction is Clapham Junction and one of the places that the girls live in is Poplar, that was made famous in the books and t.v. series Call The Midwife. The writing is mostly in the form of dialog which at times I found a little disjointed. The lives of the group of girls who work at the sweet factory consist of going to work and going out at night to 'have a good time'. The low expectations of Rube, Sylvie and the other girls was sad, all they wanted was a man. The part where Rube has to visit the local back street abortionist Winny is horrific, and the eventual result of the procedure is tragic and shocking. The picture painted of the house in which Ada lives made my stomach turn over, the smell and the mess but most of all the acceptance of it all made me feel both sad and angry. The story of the death of Mrs Hardy was touching, the importance of a proper funeral, even though life was so squalid, seemed almost ironic.
The writing is raw and shocking, the attitude to sex, and abortion is totally uninhibited. The book is described as a snap shot of the early sixties and maybe that is how it was for some people. I do not however recognise my experience of the 1960's in this book. I was in my early teens in 1960 and my big sister was twelve years older. The only thing that I recognised in the book was the music, I remember those songs.
Most girls of the time did not behave like ally cats, they did not have back street abortions at the drop of a hat. In fact it was not usually the 'bad' girls that 'got themselves into trouble', they were too smart. It was the innocent ones that made that mistake and it was taken for granted that the man would' do the right thing' and they would be very quickly married. Where I lived the was no one like the drunken Winney who would sort things out for ten shillings.
I was shocked by the amount of racist language in the book, again I never heard such language from anyone I knew. I have to admit that there were a few words and expressions that I did not even know the meaning of, I thought it best not to Google them, ignorance is bliss. This is certainly an eye opening read if you feel strong enough, but in my opinion it is by no means typical of the time.

[Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Badly written, repetitive and it's usually not clear who among the entirely uncharacterised characters is speaking. It consists of girls going out and getting drunk and looking for boys to snog, or alternately women sitting around discussing various aspects of their sex lives. Perhaps it had a shock value when it was first published, but now it's simply tedious. Abandoned at 40%.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains a series of short stories, many revolving around the lives of young women - Rube, Lily and Sylvie - who work at a sweet factory. The young women are determined to make the most of themselves, and their lives. Life revolves around trying to enjoy themselves, by going dancing and meet young men.

Published in 1963, this presents a slice of social history which has now passed. I recently read, "A Kind of Loving," which presented the male point of view of getting a girl pregnant and being expected to marry her. This shows the consequences of pregnancy of young, unmarried girls, at that time. Illegal, backstreet abortions.

It is a time of casual sex, and casual violence. However, although this sounds somewhat depressing, it also shows a working class community - albeit a changing community, as London becomes more multi-cultural - with a feeling of closeness. Every page in this book feels crowded and dense, but there are portraits of women washing clothes communally, eating, or sitting around on the factory steps, where you sense there is a real warmth between them. An interesting view of London, working class, life in the early Sixties.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Nell Dunn's collection of short stories "Up The Junction" is like being buried in a coffin full of 12''' Smiths record covers. One can taste the lukewarm cream tea or a dark bitter right off the page. For me, what these stories, published in 1963, do is tell the tale, because of the rich London language and accents. I know nothing of Dunn's life or where she came from, but I read that she came from a higher class, and chose to live in Battersea and Clapham Junction, which at the time of these stories was a total working class area of London. "Up The Junction" is very location orientated, and through Dunn's eyes and writing, one gets the harsh life of its citizens who live in those two areas of London.

Sex runs through these narrations of women and guys on the make, but it is not exactly 'happy' sex or even 'sexy' sex, but more of a way of passing time between working, and doing a touch of crime. Without a doubt, a great London book, that is far away from the world of PG Wodehouse as possible. Some of the images are shocking, for instance an aborted baby flushed down the toilet, but I don't feel it was done for shock purposes, but almost a journalistic touch.

There is a lot of music in the background as well. Before the Fab Four made their appearance, here you get snippets of pre-beatle pop lyrics with a mixture of American soul. There's work, but then there is dancing, which becomes a mating call of sorts. Without a doubt, "Up The Junction" is the largest and most intense "kitchen sink realism" set of stories ever.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nell Dunn's debut novella/collection of vignette's is a classic of 60's London that caused a scandal upon its initial release by all accounts but by modern standards it feels very tame. Told in a staccato style of overheard snippets of conversation we spend some time amongst the young, free and occasionally single girls working in a confectionery factory as they live their working class lives the best way they know how "you're only young once, so have as much fun as you can" which seems to translate to have as much casual sex as possible and deal with the inevitable consequences as they occur. It's a bit of fun, not a patch on Dunn's next published work, Poor Cow, and will most likely annoy more people than it impresses in the modern readership.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grim slice of life in 1960s London. Dunn offers glimpses of a group of young women dealing with daily details in a harsh world. Having a good time must seem essential in a bleak neighborhood......or maybe those times are more memorable because of the poverty in the rest of their lives.

[Kirsty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Up the Junction and Poor Cow, both better known works of Nell Dunn’s, have recently been republished by Virago. As there are many elements which the books have in common, and as both share the same author preface, rather than address them separately, I have decided to write about them both together. Nell Dunn’s introduction is like a story in itself, and tells of her life in Battersea from the late 1950s. It includes such details as, ‘There were still a lot bomb sites, and my two-year-old son would be taken by the big girls and boys to play King of the Castle on the mounds of building debris’, ‘The night of Princess Margaret’s wedding everyone got drunk’, and ‘I bought my first pair of tight white jeans off a rail in the market’. This introduction in a sense serves to ground the stories which follow it.

Up the Junction, first published in 1963, is made up of a series of short stories set in South London. It was awarded the John Llewelyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and has also been turned into a film. The tales in the collection are all heavily involved in the sense of a community and the mundanities of life in 1960s London. This is clear from the titles of the stories alone, which range from ‘Out With the Girls’ and ‘Out With the Boys’, to ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘Wash Night’. The book’s blurb states that the stories ‘are unhibited, spirited vignettes of young women’s lives in South London in the sixties [where] money is scarce and enjoyment must be grabbed while it can’. To further set the scene, one supposes, all of these stories have been told by way of dialect heavy conversations between its characters – for example, ‘It’s me birthday tomorrer’ and ‘It’s better to marry an ugly man what’s got god ways than a good-looker what’s sly’. It is not often clear who is speaking, so in consequence, the reader learns next to nothing about any of the characters who fill its 130 odd pages.

Three protagonists are followed in Up the Junction, Sylvie, Ruby and Lily, all of whom work at a local sweet factory. The entirety of the book, on the surface of it, looks to be heavily involved with sexual politics, but as one reads on, the fixation upon aesthetics becomes clear. Each of the characters seems to place much emphasis upon their own appearances, interrupting even important conversations to ask if their hair looks nice, or if their new item of clothing suits them. Examples of this can be found in sentences such as this one: ‘[Pauline] was pretty in the dirty cafe; full ashtrays and dripping sauce bottles; sugar-bowls with brown clotted lumps in the white sugar’.

The stories are evocative of bygone times – there is lots of dancing, ‘snoggin”, institutionalised racism, National Health glasses, the pawning of furniture when money is tight, illegal abortions and the WVS. Stories take place in the factory where the protagonists work, the local pub, the Old Kent Road, and various dwellings around the area. Whilst interesting enough, these stories are relatively similar, and in consequence, nothing really stands out amongst them. Sadly, the majority also do not feel well-developed enough to have any lasting effect upon the reader. ‘Sunday Morning’, for instance, would have been far better with further explanation of the situation. The illustrations, drawn by Susan Benson, are randomly scattered through the pages and rarely match the writing which surrounds them. It does not feel as though there is much within Up the Junction which the modern reader will be able to identify with. The simplistic writing style also takes away any atmosphere which the stories could feasibly have had.

Poor Cow was first published in 1967, and was Dunn’s second work of fiction. Margaret Drabble, whose introduction to the story has been reprinted in the new edition, calls it ‘Touching, thoughtful and fresh… A tour de force’. In her introduction, Drabble states that after her move to London, Dunn ‘was soon to be writing of the lives of working-class women in a way that struck the same chords as the plays and novels of Sillitoe, Osborne and John Braine… Nell Dunn felt she had discovered a world where women did not depend on male patronage, where they went their own ways, sexually and financially, where there was plenty of work’.

The novella tells the story of Joy, ‘twenty-one, with bleached hair, high suede shoes, and a head full of dreams’. When the story opens, Joy is making her way down Fulham Broadway on her ‘slum-white legs’ with her new baby in tow, ‘his face brick red against his new white bonnet’. ‘Her life seems to be a catalogue of disasters, which follow naturally and inevitably from the first false step of letting herself get pregnant’, Drabble says. She adds that Joy’s husband, Tom, is a thief, ‘which translates her into a nice close-carpeted flat in Ruislip’. Neither Joy nor her husband are content with their lives: ‘He always wanted more out of his life than what he had’. When Tom is caught in a stolen car by the police, he is hauled in and sentenced to four years in prison: ‘… course he had only to do two years out of that you see… But I hadn’t even the heart to sell the furniture, I just walked out and went to live with my Auntie Emm’.

The story is told in a variety of narrative styles, which chop and change at whim. Joy’s own narrative voice is written in a similar dialect to that captured in Up the Junction: ‘Terrible when you ain’t got fuck all, you ain’t got nothing’. As with Up the Junction, it is not always clear here who is speaking. Poor Cow is not overly engaging, and the uncertain style of its writing and narrator let the story down somewhat.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of short stories, set in London in the early sixties, woven together to make a loose kind of short novel. Sometimes funny, but mostly tough. An unusual style of writing, characters who come across as very real in the ways that they act, and often quite brutal scenarios ensure that this is not an easy read. And it is never meant to be. This is before the swinging sixties, a working class neighborhood with young women who do what they must to keep going; they are not part of the 'Never had it so good' generation, and they have no real expectations apart from keeping a job, meeting lads and probably having sex, if they want it, and not getting pregnant, if they can help it. The language is a reflection of the times within the context of this particular group of friends, and as such, with racist, homophobic, sexist (the list could go on) comments it can be quite uncomfortable to read. And relatively speaking it was not that long ago. Is it controversial now? Yes. Was it then? Yes, but for different reasons. Should we still read books that can be offensive? Yes. If we don't remember, then we will surely forget. It made for an interesting book-group discussion.

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd little book, a series of short stories with some of the stories connected by characters. At first I was a little disoriented by not really having a feel for the characters but I soon adjusted by just thinking I was in a coffeeshop overhearing a discussion in the booth behind me. It wasn't as important to identify or know much about the person speaking; I just listened to the rhythm, tone and details of what was being said. As I did with the Don Camillo stories, I limited my reading to just a few stories at a time and found that I really looked forward to my daily taste of the junction talk. Not for all tastes, though. I also think that 130 pages was long enough. I rate it 3.7 stars rounded up to 4 stars for the different, yet interesting, reading experience it provided.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

a montage of life as a hardscrabble working girl in 60s London. pared down and ready to leap off the page onto the screen, which it did, twice. vivid, frank, depressing.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading "Up the Junction" is like being caught in the midst of a long, disjointed conversation amongst frustrated people with not enough room to live but plenty of enthusiasm for life. Dunn's spare prose (which mostly consists of dialogue) sets out to capture working class London life with a dispassionate eye. This works best in stories that reveal something of their subjects, e.g. sorry Sheila and her thoughtless tormentors in "The Gold Blouse," Dave's assertions in "The Deserted House" that he "don't want a girl who's bin through all what I've been through," Rube's reappearance and emotional rawness in "Wash Night," and everything about Mrs. Hardy in "Death of an Old Scrubber" (not to mention the offhand conversations that take place amongst the living – whether it's better to be buried or cremated, and gossip about that bloke down the street who bought his own gravestone and has it sitting in his back garden, just waiting). These stories are bright points.

Unfortunately, many of the other vignettes seem to be seen through starry eyes. Struck by her new surroundings, Dunn reports with delight the various stages of disrepair of her neighbors' flats, young men bragging about their successful robberies, gossip about the length of prison sentences, and great admiration for the bits of rough she often picks up in dance halls, pubs, and cafes. The trouble here is that Dunn is that the conversations are accurate that they often drift into banality. Dunn appears to amazed by working class people that she's unable or unwilling to give them interior lives. Sometimes this is fine – the slightly rawer people, or the indifferent or awkward like Mrs. Hardy and Dave and Shelia – come through loud and clear, but those who engage in more socially accepted behaviour remain opaque, because Dunn simply reports their surface ("he wore a silver chain," "he reached into his pocket"), without providing any other clues outside the dialogue as to what could possibly be happening with the characters.

What I am trying to say is that sometimes this is lovely and interesting little book, and sometimes it reads like the disjointed impressions of a starry-eyed heiress slumming it in Battersea, awed by all the daring working class people around her. When Dunn's portraiture is on, it's brilliant, but when it's off, it's near insulting.

[James Barker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Middle-class Dunn slummed it in the early 60s and this, her portrayal of life in Battersea, resulted. A series of vignettes lifting the lid on poverty and the thin line between life and death in low class London, there is a real sense of 'carpe diem' through out. Alcohol is central to the concept of a good time. Sexual urges are acted upon and there is an acceptance that the male of the species is predatory. Abortions are common-place and are chosen (backstreet style) without contemplation or regret. Children are fed on cat food.

A real insight into lives that are lived with little chance of escape or improvement, told through the the dialogue of the local characters. Some times moving, often funny, almost always shocking, I found this slender book difficult to follow at times. The second half of the book is much stronger than the first.

Inevitably its publication caused an uproar in the 60s. Sadly much of the furore revolved around the loose sexual mores recorded in its pages and this rather overshadowed the more pressing truths of poverty and the changes in social housing forced upon such communities (so well documented forty years later in the excellent The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class).

[Sally Whitehead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tricky one this. It's impossible to ignore the fact that I am reading this expose of early 60s working class Wandsworth as a middle class reader in 2014, and therefore whilst being able to totally appreciate its revelatory nature and the wonderfully gritty "kitchen sink" dialogue, it's also alienating in terms of its sexual politics and the casual racism and homophobia.

I love what it stands for in terms of women's writing but did I enjoy it? Not nearly as much as I'd hoped.

[Allie Riley · Rating 2 out of 5]

From my booklog:
"Poor characterisation. Patronising. Racist in places."

I have no memory of this book whatsoever!

[Yalan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love London; hence this book. But wow. It's only 133 pages but I couldn't even get through it because it is so boring. Not my cup of tea at all.

[Volker Rivinius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Français: cf. infra / Español: ver más abajo

Deutsch:
Chelsea-Girl wagt sich auf die andere Seite der Themse, nach Battersea ins Arbeiterviertel. Es war 1962, in der Vor-Beatles-Ära, und London war noch nicht voll im Swing. Aber zweifellos war man der "feinen Gesellschaft" und ihrer Heucheleien überdrüssig, und so zog die reiche Erbin (Erzählerin wie auch Autorin) die Freiheit des Tons und die Tradition der kleinen Leute vor, die sie in nebeneinander gestellten Szenen beschrieb.

Damals war das neu. Heute, nach -zig Mike-Leigh-und-Ken-Loach-Filmen und jeder Menge "angry young men"- und "kitchen sink"-Literatur wissen wir über die Befindlichkeiten der britischen Arbeiterklasse Bescheid. Inzwischen ist Battersea längst gentrifiziert, das Arbeiterviertel gibt es nicht mehr, und sollte sich heutzutage nochmal jemand über die Themse wagen, wird man nicht unbedingt mit offenen Armen empfangen - wie schon vor 20 Jahren der Pulp-Song "Common People" andeutete. Was bleibt, sind im Grunde genommen Zeugnisse einer untergegangen Welt.

Intellektuell bereiteten Bücher wie diese den Nährboden für das, was da kommen mochte. Es war plötzlich cool, Arbeiter zu sein, sogar, wenn man aus Liverpool kam.

Français:
Chelsea girl s'aventure de l'autre côté de la Tamise, à Battersea, dans le quartier populaire. C'était en 1962, l'ère pré-Beatles, et Londres ne swinguait pas encore tout à fait. Mais sans doute les gens étaient-ils fatigués de la "posh society" et de ses hypocrisies, et la riche héritière (narratrice et auteur) préférait-elle la liberté du son et la tradition des petites gens qu'elle décrivait dans des scènes juxtaposées.

À l'époque, c'était nouveau. Aujourd'hui, après d'innombrables films de Mike Leigh et Ken Loach et une abondance de littérature sur les "jeunes hommes en colère" et les "kitchen sink", nous connaissons les sensibilités de la classe ouvrière britannique. Battersea s'est depuis longtemps embourgeoisé, le quartier ouvrier n'existe plus, et si quelqu'un ose à nouveau traverser la Tamise de nos jours, il n'est pas forcément accueilli à bras ouverts - comme le suggérait la chanson "Common People" de Pulp il y a 20 ans. Ce qui reste, ce sont essentiellement des témoignages d'un monde disparu.

Intellectuellement, des livres comme ceux-ci préparaient le terrain pour ce qui allait suivre. Soudain, c'était cool d'être un ouvrier, même si vous étiez de Liverpool.

Español:
Chelsea Girl se aventura al otro lado del Támesis, a Battersea, en el barrio obrero. Era 1962, la época pre-Beatles, y Londres aún no estaba swingin'. Pero, sin duda, la gente estaba cansada de la "buena sociedad" y de sus hipocresías, por lo que la rica heredera (narradora además de autora) prefería la libertad del tono y la tradición de la gente pequeña que describía en escenas yuxtapuestas.

En ese momento, esto era nuevo. Hoy en día, después de innumerables películas de Mike Leigh y Ken Loach y de mucha literatura de "jóvenes enfadados" y "kitchen sink", ya conocemos las sensibilidades de la clase obrera británica. Hace tiempo que Battersea se ha aburguesado, el barrio obrero ya no existe, y si alguien se atreve a cruzar el Támesis hoy en día, no es necesariamente recibido con los brazos abiertos, como sugería la canción de la banda Pulp "Common People" hace 20 años. Lo que queda son básicamente testimonios de un mundo desaparecido.

Intelectualmente, libros como estos prepararon el terreno para lo que iba a venir. De repente, era genial ser un trabajador, incluso si eras de Liverpool.

[Jo Hawkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just finished this sat on a deck chair at Hay Festival - super atmospheric. Sadly I just didn’t get on with this at all. Read on my quest to discover more about Battersea’s history, yet I don’t feel any the wiser in honesty. The female experience seems to have improved ten fold in 60 years thank god…shame the same can’t be said for the job market…

[Thea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high expectations for this book because I’d recently read ‘talking to women’ and loved it. It was good but I wasn’t hooked at all

[Chrystyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Up the Junction by Nell Dunn - Good

Badged as short stories, it's really a series of vignettes about a group of young people in late 1950s/early 1960s London.

I'm a little too young to have experienced some of the stories in the book first hand, but it does bring back some memories for me and it's always good to have a reminder of how things were back then and how far we have come - especially in these days when folk are feeling hard done by (not saying they aren't) and maybe romanticising the past.

No luxuries, few amenities, awful low paid jobs with no 'health and safety', little or no birth control, no legal abortion.... nothing to do but work when you can, and enjoy yourself however you can, cross your fingers and hope for the best.

By chance I was listening to Common People by Pulp and this particular chorus stood out as apt:

"Never live like common people
Never do what common people do
Never fail like common people
Never watch your life slide out of view
And then dance and drink, and screw
Because there's nothing else to do"

A salutary reminder of how far we've come and how much further we have to go.

#review

[Nigeyb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Up The Junction (1963) is an interesting period piece. It's a collection of dialogue-driven short snapshots of a group of young working class Londoners in the Battersea area. It must have been quite shocking and ground breaking when it was first published.

Nell Dunn began writing fiction in the late 1950s, composing a number of short vignettes around the everyday life and people she met when she moved to Battersea and began working in a sweet factory. Some of these short pieces are contained in Up The Junction

It all feels quite dated now but is definitely worth reading for anyone interested in London literature and social history.

Although Up The Junction is wholly concerned with working class life, Nell Dunn herself is the daughter of Sir Philip Dunn, the maternal granddaughter of the 5th Earl of Rosslyn, and was a descendant of Charles II and Nell Gwyn.

3/5

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel it hard to give 5 stars to a book that has an abundance of racist, homophobic and misogynist characters in it... Yet I have.

Because, unfortunately I suppose, it's authentic. This is such a vivid account of life in 1960s London. The prose is very concise, and yet often very beautiful. Often it's very shocking as well. This is the only novel I've ever read that's made my mouth open in shock at what I've read (I'll keep that vague to prevent spoilers). The simple style is well crafted, and surprising.

The dialogue is very authentic too, creating consistent characters who are very easy to picture and define. (Although a lot of the speech isn't attributed to any named character, it drifts around the room.) There's a lot of atmosphere created in each story/chapter/vignette, and it feels so real and inviting, while feeling toxic.

It's a great read, and although it was lacking in a few areas, it's authenticity and enjoyability lead me to give it 5 stars. Hopefully, I'll explore some of Dunn's other novels too.

[Sarah AF · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm in so many minds about this book. I think reading the introduction which discussed Dunn's experiences living alongside the subjects of this book probably somewhat tempered my actual reading of it. My biggest misgiving was whether or not this book was, when you boiled it down, poverty poor. Dunn's writing style, focussing on a snappy soundbites of dialogue which had the ability to shock and outrage with the bluntness didn't allow for enough heart and vulnerability to shine through in the world she portrayed. The community aspects were there in the setting, but the choice to not have it always clear who the speaker was made it hard to get fully to grips with the characters and their stories. What did work for me was the grittiness of this book. It was a tough read at times, dealing with issues that were incredibly controversial and topical in the 1960s - abortion and unwanted pregnancy was a recurring theme - and I loved the no holds barred approach in presenting those issues.

[Vics · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is pretty hard to follow, despite being only 133 pages long. It's more of a collection of incoherent diary entries. AS I read more of the book and in bigger chunks, it was easier, but if you plan on reading in sections it's easy to get lost. I also began to enjoy it a bit more once I realised it was essentially plot-less.

On the othere hand, this is a really interesting book about the life as a working class woman in the 60's in the slums of London.

Hopefully I'll enjoy it a bit more when we have to analyse it, but for now: 2 stars.

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of gritty but vibrant tales of a group of young women in 1960s London. The Second World War still looms in the background, with bomb sites abounding, and the Cold War is in evidence with frequent mentions of the H-bomb, but the stories are all down to earth glimpses of normal life. It's very much of the 60s, but as much as stayed the same as has changed; the stories are filled with pop music, boys, immigration, the influence of American culture, etc.
Painfully bleak at times but overall enjoyable, readable and heartfelt.

[Annie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rubbish