What do you think?
Rate this book
The Valley: A Hundred Years in the Life of a Yorkshire Family
The close-knit villages of the Dearne Valley were home to four generations of the Hollingworth family. Spanning Richard Benson's great-grandmother Winnie's ninety-two years in the valley, and drawing on years of historical research, interviews and anecdotes, The Valley lets us into generations of carousing and banter as the family's attempts to build a better and fairer world for themselves meet sometimes with triumph, sometimes with bitter defeat. Against a backdrop of underground explosions, strikes and pit closures, these are unflinching, deeply personal stories of battles between the sexes in a man's world sustained by strong women; of growing up, and the power of love and imagination to transform lives.
517 pages, Paperback
First published April 24, 2014
6 people are currently reading
124 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
September 6, 2016
Abraham Lincoln understood that life was short and rarely sweet at a visceral level, probably because of the early death of his mother and his sister. Later in his life he attempted to trace his family history and lost the thread at his parental grandfather; of his mother’s history he could trace nothing at all. When asked about his family background for his presidential campaign biography, he responded “It can all be condensed into a single sentence, and that sentence you will find in Gray’s Elegy, ‘The short and simple annals of the poor.’”
Life is short, and very soon we disappear even from memory, except for a very few historically important figures like Darwin or Lincoln. Biographies are written about the great (if not necessarily the good), or at least about public figures of some interest. Literature rarely stoops to tell the story of the humble of the earth.
I stumbled across this book at the web page for the James Tait Black Prize for Biography (http://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait...). Here among the expected biographies of artists and other notables lies the 2014 prize winner, the story of four generations of a Yorkshire family in the coal pits of the Dearne Valley during the 20th century, told by a member of the fourth generation.
Richard Benson has done something marvelous in this book. While documenting the life of his family in clear and candid detail, and giving the context of the changes in the outside world which impacts the family, he has built a social history of how life was for ordinary people in the coal mining villages of South Yorkshire. The history reads like a novel, and you are drawn deeply into the lives of the characters; you care about what happens to them as individual persons. Contrary to Lincoln, the annals of the poor are not necessarily short nor simple.
Life is short, and very soon we disappear even from memory, except for a very few historically important figures like Darwin or Lincoln. Biographies are written about the great (if not necessarily the good), or at least about public figures of some interest. Literature rarely stoops to tell the story of the humble of the earth.
I stumbled across this book at the web page for the James Tait Black Prize for Biography (http://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait...). Here among the expected biographies of artists and other notables lies the 2014 prize winner, the story of four generations of a Yorkshire family in the coal pits of the Dearne Valley during the 20th century, told by a member of the fourth generation.
Richard Benson has done something marvelous in this book. While documenting the life of his family in clear and candid detail, and giving the context of the changes in the outside world which impacts the family, he has built a social history of how life was for ordinary people in the coal mining villages of South Yorkshire. The history reads like a novel, and you are drawn deeply into the lives of the characters; you care about what happens to them as individual persons. Contrary to Lincoln, the annals of the poor are not necessarily short nor simple.
February 13, 2016
From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Abridged from Richard Benson's epic family saga The Valley, the focus of this Book of the Week is on the story of the author's grandmother - Winnie Hollingworth (1909 - 2002) - and her life in the mining villages of the Dearne Valley in South Yorkshire.
This remarkable social history draws on years of research, interviews and anecdote which chart generations of carousing and banter, tears and fights all set against the background of a close-knit community where almost everybody worked either in the mines or the mills.
Richard Benson's first book, THE FARM which related the story of his own parents and brother and their livelihood in the Yorkshire Wolds was described as ' an extraordinary mixture of hardness and tenderness, wit and slog.. wonderful ' Ronald Blythe author of Akenfield. It went on to be a no.1 bestseller.
This new book is a powerful and moving achievement - it follows Winnie from her first romantic encounter: 'her heart beating hard and fast down in her whalebone and elastic' to her final years sitting in the lounge of a long rubber-tiled room with high-backed chairs around the walls.. ' where 'the residents either roost mutely or chat while their eyes search the room for a younger person who might play the piano for them.'
Ep. 1 : Miner, Walter Parkin brings his wife Annie to the Dearne Valley; at the age of fourteen their daughter Winnie goes into service, but her father's unpredictable temper exacerbated by war injuries, does not make her life easy.
Ep.2. On a summer evening in 1929 Winnie goes to her first dance at the Miners' Welfare Hall.
Ep 3. Winnie's pregnancy, the catalyst for her marriage turns out to be a false alarm, but when she becomes pregnant again, she and Harry decide they can just about afford to move into their own home.
Ep 4. Life in the Dearne changes with the outbreak of the Second World War. Harry continues to develop his musical and entertaining career, with more nights out on the circuit.
Ep 5. Children become adults, and Winnie and Harry grow frail, but there are still surprises in store.
Read by Richard Stacey
Producer: Jill Waters
Abridged and directed by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041vvvh
Abridged from Richard Benson's epic family saga The Valley, the focus of this Book of the Week is on the story of the author's grandmother - Winnie Hollingworth (1909 - 2002) - and her life in the mining villages of the Dearne Valley in South Yorkshire.
This remarkable social history draws on years of research, interviews and anecdote which chart generations of carousing and banter, tears and fights all set against the background of a close-knit community where almost everybody worked either in the mines or the mills.
Richard Benson's first book, THE FARM which related the story of his own parents and brother and their livelihood in the Yorkshire Wolds was described as ' an extraordinary mixture of hardness and tenderness, wit and slog.. wonderful ' Ronald Blythe author of Akenfield. It went on to be a no.1 bestseller.
This new book is a powerful and moving achievement - it follows Winnie from her first romantic encounter: 'her heart beating hard and fast down in her whalebone and elastic' to her final years sitting in the lounge of a long rubber-tiled room with high-backed chairs around the walls.. ' where 'the residents either roost mutely or chat while their eyes search the room for a younger person who might play the piano for them.'
Ep. 1 : Miner, Walter Parkin brings his wife Annie to the Dearne Valley; at the age of fourteen their daughter Winnie goes into service, but her father's unpredictable temper exacerbated by war injuries, does not make her life easy.
Ep.2. On a summer evening in 1929 Winnie goes to her first dance at the Miners' Welfare Hall.
Ep 3. Winnie's pregnancy, the catalyst for her marriage turns out to be a false alarm, but when she becomes pregnant again, she and Harry decide they can just about afford to move into their own home.
Ep 4. Life in the Dearne changes with the outbreak of the Second World War. Harry continues to develop his musical and entertaining career, with more nights out on the circuit.
Ep 5. Children become adults, and Winnie and Harry grow frail, but there are still surprises in store.
Read by Richard Stacey
Producer: Jill Waters
Abridged and directed by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041vvvh
November 10, 2022
If you're a hobbyist historian, you never know what topic will next attract your attention and lure you down the rabbit hole. In my case, as a 48 year old middle class female from the southwestern United States, it is the history of the British working class during the Industrial Revolution.
So I started off with Engels and the mid 19th century, but what I *really* wanted to read about was the lives of the working class during the deindustrialization of England of the 1970s to the 1990s - the clashes with the unions and the strikes, the jobs that went away, and the villages that lost their communities and their history. And no industry was more important to Britain nor employed as many citizens as mining.
This book is just brilliant. Considering my preference for personal stories, and not so much big picture reviews (like, say, for example, military history), I was absolutely riveted by the detailed description of the strike of 1984 (which I had no idea lasted an entire year). Really, the entire period from 1945-1999 is fascinating because the way people lived and worked changed completely. Ex: Indoor bathrooms not installed in the old council houses until the very end of the 1960s!
Those pits are closed now. Most of those homes were demolished in the slum clearances. But because of the author's work, with his family, the history is preserved for us to read about.
So I started off with Engels and the mid 19th century, but what I *really* wanted to read about was the lives of the working class during the deindustrialization of England of the 1970s to the 1990s - the clashes with the unions and the strikes, the jobs that went away, and the villages that lost their communities and their history. And no industry was more important to Britain nor employed as many citizens as mining.
This book is just brilliant. Considering my preference for personal stories, and not so much big picture reviews (like, say, for example, military history), I was absolutely riveted by the detailed description of the strike of 1984 (which I had no idea lasted an entire year). Really, the entire period from 1945-1999 is fascinating because the way people lived and worked changed completely. Ex: Indoor bathrooms not installed in the old council houses until the very end of the 1960s!
Those pits are closed now. Most of those homes were demolished in the slum clearances. But because of the author's work, with his family, the history is preserved for us to read about.
August 7, 2017
The Valley got tremendous reviews in the press and has an average of 4.36 on Goodreads so I am obviously missing something. My short reaction to the book is 'ho hum'. It's certainly an interesting snippet of social history and there are some interesting and moving events described, but it's a bit like being at a family party where you only vaguely know the family. There are stories that mean so much to the participants but which are not really that interesting second hand and it's a party that does go on and on. To my mind, the earlier parts are better, there are fewer characters and the chronological pace was swift. I found the the early 1980s rather dragged. It's clear that I am missing something as it is so much admired.
July 10, 2018
The Dearne Valley these days is somewhere you whizz through on fast link roads to get from Doncaster to Barnsley and Rotherham. But until the 1990s it was one of the most important coal mining areas in Europe and home to numerous pits, producing top quality coal (some, from the Brodsworth pit, supplying the sovereign due to its intense heat producing qualities). The Valley tells the extraordinary story of an ordinary Dearne family for pretty much the whole of the twentieth century and beyond. Epic in scope (it's over 500 pages long) and novelistic in its sense of place, character and story it is extremely difficult to put aside once you start it. The fact that it is totally engrossing is largely down to the author's knowledge of the fine details of his family life - he has obviously spent many hours speaking to friends and relations and mined deep into the history of family and community. What emerges is full of incident, love, disaster and triumph against the odds.
Richard Benson tells the further story of his own branch of the family in The Farm. Published before The Valley it is an equally fascinating story.
Richard Benson tells the further story of his own branch of the family in The Farm. Published before The Valley it is an equally fascinating story.
May 6, 2024
Loved it.
July 10, 2015
For anyone with an interest in modern social history, particularly when it captures the life and times of people in communities local to yourself, as this book has done, then it's an absolute belter of a tale. Brilliant read and absorbed throughout!
May 3, 2016
Thoroughly engaging book that captures the struggles of several generations of the same family. Fascinating social history...
August 8, 2018
This is both a sprawling and a fascinating book. Essentially the biography of the matriarch of a South Yorkshire family, the book is also a biography of the Dearne Valley itself and an elegy for the lost world of the South Yorkshire coal mines that were simply extinguished in the twenty years between 1980 and 2000.
I bought it because I wanted to know more about the north of the county that I've made my home - Sheffield being very much steel but not so much coal. It is well written, although a little judicious editing would not have gone amiss. There is a significant amount devoted to the 1984/5 miner's strike, in which the Metropolitan police really do not come off well at all. The descriptions of domestic abuse, which appear almost routine in the lives of the women, really are shocking. This is no rose-tinted view of the passing of a former way of life.
The book was written well before the EU referendum, in which the Dearne Valley voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU despite the huge amounts of EU investment it had received. The description of a community that for a hundred years had been ordered about by people who had little real interest or knowledge in their way of life perhaps gives part of the explanation why.
I bought it because I wanted to know more about the north of the county that I've made my home - Sheffield being very much steel but not so much coal. It is well written, although a little judicious editing would not have gone amiss. There is a significant amount devoted to the 1984/5 miner's strike, in which the Metropolitan police really do not come off well at all. The descriptions of domestic abuse, which appear almost routine in the lives of the women, really are shocking. This is no rose-tinted view of the passing of a former way of life.
The book was written well before the EU referendum, in which the Dearne Valley voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU despite the huge amounts of EU investment it had received. The description of a community that for a hundred years had been ordered about by people who had little real interest or knowledge in their way of life perhaps gives part of the explanation why.
March 9, 2019
At first the sheer size of this book was a bit daunting but there was no padding here.
This was an intimate and honest account of one family's history over the course of one hundred years through times of massive social and political changes.
There is too much to really know where to start with a review, so I will limit to saying it was simply written like the people it described with no fancy techniques or complicated plot twists but still beautifully written bringing the wonderful characters to life and not skimming over the less pleasant ones and letting us share in their triumphs and defeats, their joys and despair.
I recommend this for anyone with an interest in the ordinary lives of extraordinary people - or vice versa!
This was an intimate and honest account of one family's history over the course of one hundred years through times of massive social and political changes.
There is too much to really know where to start with a review, so I will limit to saying it was simply written like the people it described with no fancy techniques or complicated plot twists but still beautifully written bringing the wonderful characters to life and not skimming over the less pleasant ones and letting us share in their triumphs and defeats, their joys and despair.
I recommend this for anyone with an interest in the ordinary lives of extraordinary people - or vice versa!
April 3, 2020
What a strange book. It reads like a mix of social history and memoir. Unfortunately, it lacks the synthesising, comparative view of history and all the charm of first-hand experience. Benson seems to be inventing screeds of conversation and imagining unrecorded encounters. The various scenes certainly don't have the unexpected details and immediacy of memoir. All written in a dull, portentous style. And with a crushing lack of humour.
May 18, 2017
A brilliant book - so enjoyed reading it.
January 13, 2019
I wish his other book was in our local library coz this bloke is an ACE author
March 16, 2015
I really enjoyed this book, feeling in the end that it gave the lives of ordinary, working people a place in history that would stand up there with the so-called “great and good”. It is the story of the Hollingworth family and, for me, it was every bit as entertaining and illuminating as anything that may be written about, say, The Windsors. And when it comes to recent British history, it was much more illuminating.
The story of the Hollingworth’s is told by one of their own from the perspective of present day mores and values and built up by the hand-me-down memories of his relatives. So, although the book dwells much in the past, the tone has a modern feel to it and the author seems to have no qualms about inserting thoughts, dialogues and motivations into the portrayal of his more distant relatives. Although the author is at pains to point out that all these events actually happened, I was more concerned about how the author might know what a female relative felt when her husband beat her, how she excused him, how she lived with herself and how she would describe the event to a friend or neighbour. It seemed that a huge slice of artistic licence must have been taken, but that’s not a criticism because it works. It helps to transport you back to a time and place and accepts that you are going to be imagining these events, as he is, from a modern perspective. Indeed, the past is a different country and they did do things differently there.
The book isn’t a soap opera, but like many soap operas, it is the women who are the strong characters. They dominate the majority of the book and it is they who make the lasting impressions as the matriarchs of the community. The men for the most part eat dripping sandwiches, drink, sleep and hope not to die in a pit explosion, while accepting the daily possibility of this kind of event. The women keep hearth and home together while the men come and go around them. This theme continues as the story moves through the more modern history of the Miners Strike with the impression being given that the men are the participants but it is the women who are the backbone that allow them to be involved. As a social history of the strike, this account wears its heart on its sleeve and their is no doubt whose side the author is on but, being from a mining family myself, I tended to be on that side too.
The history stretches over a hundred years of the family and major events do add shade to the picture, but primarily the book is about the people, their lives and their loves. I was flagging a little bit in the middle, but once we reach the Sixties the book seems to become more lively and immediate, the characters more fully developed. Given it’s five hundred pages long, this was a shot in the arm that kept me going to see what happened to everyone as they progressed through times that I also had experienced. I finished it satisfied with the tales that had been told and reflecting on time passing. How do we capture it? The author has gone a long way to try and crystalise an experience of his own family, and has succeeded in painting a picture that is entertaining, vivid, rounded and that overall rings true. It’s as good an account of a hundred years of British history as I’ve read.
The story of the Hollingworth’s is told by one of their own from the perspective of present day mores and values and built up by the hand-me-down memories of his relatives. So, although the book dwells much in the past, the tone has a modern feel to it and the author seems to have no qualms about inserting thoughts, dialogues and motivations into the portrayal of his more distant relatives. Although the author is at pains to point out that all these events actually happened, I was more concerned about how the author might know what a female relative felt when her husband beat her, how she excused him, how she lived with herself and how she would describe the event to a friend or neighbour. It seemed that a huge slice of artistic licence must have been taken, but that’s not a criticism because it works. It helps to transport you back to a time and place and accepts that you are going to be imagining these events, as he is, from a modern perspective. Indeed, the past is a different country and they did do things differently there.
The book isn’t a soap opera, but like many soap operas, it is the women who are the strong characters. They dominate the majority of the book and it is they who make the lasting impressions as the matriarchs of the community. The men for the most part eat dripping sandwiches, drink, sleep and hope not to die in a pit explosion, while accepting the daily possibility of this kind of event. The women keep hearth and home together while the men come and go around them. This theme continues as the story moves through the more modern history of the Miners Strike with the impression being given that the men are the participants but it is the women who are the backbone that allow them to be involved. As a social history of the strike, this account wears its heart on its sleeve and their is no doubt whose side the author is on but, being from a mining family myself, I tended to be on that side too.
The history stretches over a hundred years of the family and major events do add shade to the picture, but primarily the book is about the people, their lives and their loves. I was flagging a little bit in the middle, but once we reach the Sixties the book seems to become more lively and immediate, the characters more fully developed. Given it’s five hundred pages long, this was a shot in the arm that kept me going to see what happened to everyone as they progressed through times that I also had experienced. I finished it satisfied with the tales that had been told and reflecting on time passing. How do we capture it? The author has gone a long way to try and crystalise an experience of his own family, and has succeeded in painting a picture that is entertaining, vivid, rounded and that overall rings true. It’s as good an account of a hundred years of British history as I’ve read.
July 16, 2014
So far -- good book -- part social history, part novel. I have to read a bit band rest to let it sink in -- so it may take me a while to finish it.Have you read it??
This is set in the gritty coal mining area of South Yorjshire, England in the Dearne Valley. A story of 100 years in the life of the author's family
My husband grwe up in this area -- I think for him it was very nostalgic. It is a bit for me --as I did know his mum and dad and visited the area. I see it more as a social history -- in a novelized, very readable format.
> 3,things , though, amaze me. One is the culture of violence, especially from husband to wives or girlfriends. Maybe the pecking order?? Women were definitely at the bottom. I think though -- that it is a little similar to the African American issue in this country -- the men are emasculated through their jobs, have to kow-tow to management and whoever else, and they become angry and resentful and take it out on the woman who can't really fight back, I know there were no rules or laws about domestic violence but neighbors knew, police knew. I suppose the women were beaten down so thought they deserved it. ( did you know -- I came across this fact researching something else -- rape was only made a crime in 1965 in Britain!!!) I wonder if the men thought that the women sat around and drank tea and gossiping all day --while they were out doing backbreaking work and facing danger.
Hence more resentment??
>
The other thing is the culture of drinking -- all the men, especially, did it -- and many overdid it!! ( perhaps linked to violence -- certainly lowers inhibitions!!!) but fathers would take their underage sons to the pub and initiate them. One scene has a grandfather telling his underage grandson to leave before midnight on New Year's Eve.
Because after the kissing, there would be fighting. He never tells him he should not be there or be drinking underage -- it was completely accepted.
The third thing is the lack of communication between men and women-- and husband and wife. Some of it seems to be the men's inability to talk about much beyond pits and drinking, Some of it seems like a couple were dating for a short time, had sex and the woman became pregnant so they "had to get married'" -- not much basis for arelationship--.and you wonder how well they knew each other. In some cases it must have been part of the resentment and anger. The women seemed to want more (romantic notions???) and maybe that is why they gossiped over the fence or over a cuppa in each others' kitchens. Needing to give each other com pany and support???
>>>
Anyway, very different from my experiences -- and I grew up in a different area of England and university educated -- whichis beyond any woman's ( or men's) thoughts or reaches.
( except the mean man married briefly to Lynda who either was attending or had attended Ruskin College at Oxford -- the trade union college)?
>>>
Life was definitely tough for both men and women -- even not that long ago.
It is definitely a good read -- But I wonder if it would appeal to people whio did not grow up in that area -- or a rel rough coal mining area?
>>>
>>>
This is set in the gritty coal mining area of South Yorjshire, England in the Dearne Valley. A story of 100 years in the life of the author's family
My husband grwe up in this area -- I think for him it was very nostalgic. It is a bit for me --as I did know his mum and dad and visited the area. I see it more as a social history -- in a novelized, very readable format.
> 3,things , though, amaze me. One is the culture of violence, especially from husband to wives or girlfriends. Maybe the pecking order?? Women were definitely at the bottom. I think though -- that it is a little similar to the African American issue in this country -- the men are emasculated through their jobs, have to kow-tow to management and whoever else, and they become angry and resentful and take it out on the woman who can't really fight back, I know there were no rules or laws about domestic violence but neighbors knew, police knew. I suppose the women were beaten down so thought they deserved it. ( did you know -- I came across this fact researching something else -- rape was only made a crime in 1965 in Britain!!!) I wonder if the men thought that the women sat around and drank tea and gossiping all day --while they were out doing backbreaking work and facing danger.
Hence more resentment??
>
The other thing is the culture of drinking -- all the men, especially, did it -- and many overdid it!! ( perhaps linked to violence -- certainly lowers inhibitions!!!) but fathers would take their underage sons to the pub and initiate them. One scene has a grandfather telling his underage grandson to leave before midnight on New Year's Eve.
Because after the kissing, there would be fighting. He never tells him he should not be there or be drinking underage -- it was completely accepted.
The third thing is the lack of communication between men and women-- and husband and wife. Some of it seems to be the men's inability to talk about much beyond pits and drinking, Some of it seems like a couple were dating for a short time, had sex and the woman became pregnant so they "had to get married'" -- not much basis for arelationship--.and you wonder how well they knew each other. In some cases it must have been part of the resentment and anger. The women seemed to want more (romantic notions???) and maybe that is why they gossiped over the fence or over a cuppa in each others' kitchens. Needing to give each other com pany and support???
>>>
Anyway, very different from my experiences -- and I grew up in a different area of England and university educated -- whichis beyond any woman's ( or men's) thoughts or reaches.
( except the mean man married briefly to Lynda who either was attending or had attended Ruskin College at Oxford -- the trade union college)?
>>>
Life was definitely tough for both men and women -- even not that long ago.
It is definitely a good read -- But I wonder if it would appeal to people whio did not grow up in that area -- or a rel rough coal mining area?
>>>
>>>
December 27, 2015
I bought this book about a year ago and I am really glad to have read it now.
'The Valley' is exactly as its name suggests, a story of 'a hundred years in the life of a Yorkshire family' - and, for anyone not in the know, the valley described is the actual Dearne Valley in South Yorkshire, England. Within the pages, the writer Richard Benson re-tells his family story that lasts for over a century through characterisation of his ancestry against the backdrop of pit-life, South Yorkshire working class cultures and ultimately pit closures that affected the life and blood of an industrial region. Benson's narrative built up from family stories is everything a reader could wish it to be. I found it to be funny, hearty, affectionate and, at many times, heart-wrenching. Truths indeed were difficult, life indeed was very hard, brusque and culture certainly had a 'hard-edge' and masculine slant. There was little room for sissies here and hard life and tough times dominate as the 'making' of truly gritty people.
Two pointers though that may be worthy of mention. Firstly, a lot of the appeal of this book lied with its local appeal to me. Although born about 10 miles away from Goldthorpe and its immediate surrounding area, I knew of some of the obvious difficulties affecting Barnsley/Doncaster during the strike in the eighties. I guess it made this book easy to relate to as I understand the local context. Secondly, I have to say that, at times, I found the strike narrative overly-lengthy. Yes, I 'get' what the author is hitting at but, at times, strike-related political narrative killed some of the true joys of characterisation in the book and stunted the flow for me. I presume that getting the balance right had to be a tough call for the author.
These things said, this book is a gem and quite unlike anything I have read before. It will appeal to anyone who is passionate about social history from a more personal and narrated perspective.
A priceless book that I will be passing on to family members and recommending heartily to others. I learned a lot more about aspects of my own local culture and have gained an appreciation for the gritty and under-appreciated alongside.
'The Valley' is exactly as its name suggests, a story of 'a hundred years in the life of a Yorkshire family' - and, for anyone not in the know, the valley described is the actual Dearne Valley in South Yorkshire, England. Within the pages, the writer Richard Benson re-tells his family story that lasts for over a century through characterisation of his ancestry against the backdrop of pit-life, South Yorkshire working class cultures and ultimately pit closures that affected the life and blood of an industrial region. Benson's narrative built up from family stories is everything a reader could wish it to be. I found it to be funny, hearty, affectionate and, at many times, heart-wrenching. Truths indeed were difficult, life indeed was very hard, brusque and culture certainly had a 'hard-edge' and masculine slant. There was little room for sissies here and hard life and tough times dominate as the 'making' of truly gritty people.
Two pointers though that may be worthy of mention. Firstly, a lot of the appeal of this book lied with its local appeal to me. Although born about 10 miles away from Goldthorpe and its immediate surrounding area, I knew of some of the obvious difficulties affecting Barnsley/Doncaster during the strike in the eighties. I guess it made this book easy to relate to as I understand the local context. Secondly, I have to say that, at times, I found the strike narrative overly-lengthy. Yes, I 'get' what the author is hitting at but, at times, strike-related political narrative killed some of the true joys of characterisation in the book and stunted the flow for me. I presume that getting the balance right had to be a tough call for the author.
These things said, this book is a gem and quite unlike anything I have read before. It will appeal to anyone who is passionate about social history from a more personal and narrated perspective.
A priceless book that I will be passing on to family members and recommending heartily to others. I learned a lot more about aspects of my own local culture and have gained an appreciation for the gritty and under-appreciated alongside.
November 20, 2017
The earlier parts of this fictionalised family history are the best. As time goes by, the set of characters gets wider. It's a bit like seeing a whole set of family photographs shown to you by someone you do not much care for. You recognise their enthusiasm, but you really care very little.
I am surely missing something. This book gets tremendous ratings and really good reviews. Perhaps some empathy training?
I am surely missing something. This book gets tremendous ratings and really good reviews. Perhaps some empathy training?
January 27, 2016
The close-knit villages of the Dearne Valley were home to four generations of the Hollingworth family. Richard Benson draws on historical research, interviews and anecdotes to show the reader what a wonderful sense of community these villages had. It's a lost world, thanks to Margaret Thatcher and her henchmen when they decided to kill off the coal mining industry. The Valley isn't all doom and gloom, however. There are many humorous episodes in the book and some heartwarming tales. I loved reading about the different generations and their attitudes to life and love. There are rogues, villains, heroes, heroines and ne'er do wells. All of life is here. A brilliant snapshot of what life was like during the miners' strike of the early 80s and how it affected, not only individuals' lives, but whole communities. A wonderful historical document. My favourite story was that of Lynda and John, as it inspired hope and showed that positivity has its own rewards. I came across Richard Benson quite a few years ago now when I read The Farm. He's a most talented writer with a generous spirit. I can't wait for his next book.
January 3, 2015
A wonderful book. 100 years of British social history engagingly told through the lives of an ordinary mining family in South Yorkshire. The Hollingworth family story is plainly and honestly recounted with a varied cast of characters who at the same time are both ordinary and remarkable. This is everyday living history. Brilliant!
Want to read
May 2, 2014There's a wonderful website to complement this book: www.thevalley.uk.com. It includes extracts, photographs and an interesting blog.
July 17, 2015
From the economist
May 30, 2014
Being from a South Yorkshire mining family I loved both the social history of this book & the politics surrounding the miners strike
March 8, 2015
We have been reading this book in our reading group and it went down very badly. We just can't understand all the 5* ratings.
February 25, 2017
An excellent read. Read like a novel but covered the social and industrial history of the valley and its families. Now looking for Richard Benson's other book 'The Farm'
May 28, 2016
amazingly well written and such a heart felt story...it revealed more about mining life than any text book ever would
April 21, 2017
A very interesting biography of a family/community.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews