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The Day of the Sardine
When he depicts Arthur's search for some sort of moral framework within the anarchy of modern society, he speaks for all of us, poetically and passionately, as truly now as he did almost half-a-century ago. (From the foreword by Alan Plater)
A powerful novel of disaffection in 1960s Newcastle, The Day of the Sardine charts a young man's uneasy passage into adulthood. Harsh and as times comic, Arthur Haggerston's story takes place against the background of a young workforce absorbed into tedious, repressive employment where the only outlets come through street violence and gang warfare. Arthur's battle through this reality provides a striking contrast to his internal struggle, outlined in his involvement with two very different one experienced and older, the other an idealistic Christian of his own age. Although set in a physical environment that has in many ways been lost to the past, the essence of Sid Chaplin's novel is easily recognisable in the urban tensions of Britain today.
A powerful novel of disaffection in 1960s Newcastle, The Day of the Sardine charts a young man's uneasy passage into adulthood. Harsh and as times comic, Arthur Haggerston's story takes place against the background of a young workforce absorbed into tedious, repressive employment where the only outlets come through street violence and gang warfare. Arthur's battle through this reality provides a striking contrast to his internal struggle, outlined in his involvement with two very different one experienced and older, the other an idealistic Christian of his own age. Although set in a physical environment that has in many ways been lost to the past, the essence of Sid Chaplin's novel is easily recognisable in the urban tensions of Britain today.
292 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
About the author
Sid Chaplin
25 books5 followersSee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Chaplin
Sid Chaplin was a remarkable man, a miner who became a popular writer, and someone who was dedicated to his roots in the North East. Born in Shildon in 1916, he left school at 14, spent a year working in a bakery, and then went down the pit. He was lucky that his grandfather's cupboards contained lots of good books, by authors like Conan Doyle, P.G. Wodehouse, W.W. Jacobs, and H.G. Wells. "I never had any instruction in grammar," Sid said, "but my reading made me a writer." He wanted to be a union or political leader when he was in his teens, and went to Fircroft College to study economics. "I wrote an essay which the tutor liked, and he said my economics were bad but my writing was entertaining. He suggested I take up writing, so I transferred to an English literature course."
He worked in the pit by day and wrote at night, and his break came in 1946 with a publisher accepting a collection of stories under the title of The Leaping Lad. Sid later joined the magazine "Coal" and came out of the pit. For a time the fact that he was producing journalism by day and trying to write fiction by night affected his ability to produce the novels and stories he wanted; but eventually he began to get more of his books published.
Sid never left his native area, and loved to walk out for miles around his Newcastle home and, as he had always done, listen to tales of his native land. KF
Sid Chaplin was a remarkable man, a miner who became a popular writer, and someone who was dedicated to his roots in the North East. Born in Shildon in 1916, he left school at 14, spent a year working in a bakery, and then went down the pit. He was lucky that his grandfather's cupboards contained lots of good books, by authors like Conan Doyle, P.G. Wodehouse, W.W. Jacobs, and H.G. Wells. "I never had any instruction in grammar," Sid said, "but my reading made me a writer." He wanted to be a union or political leader when he was in his teens, and went to Fircroft College to study economics. "I wrote an essay which the tutor liked, and he said my economics were bad but my writing was entertaining. He suggested I take up writing, so I transferred to an English literature course."
He worked in the pit by day and wrote at night, and his break came in 1946 with a publisher accepting a collection of stories under the title of The Leaping Lad. Sid later joined the magazine "Coal" and came out of the pit. For a time the fact that he was producing journalism by day and trying to write fiction by night affected his ability to produce the novels and stories he wanted; but eventually he began to get more of his books published.
Sid never left his native area, and loved to walk out for miles around his Newcastle home and, as he had always done, listen to tales of his native land. KF
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 2, 2019
Fantastic classic novel
How I've lived this long without discovering this book, I don't know! A Geordie coming-of-age novel set in the age of the angry, young man novels. Brilliantly crafted, the characters are only more vibrant through the passing of time. Everything about this novel oozes class: everyone should read it!
How I've lived this long without discovering this book, I don't know! A Geordie coming-of-age novel set in the age of the angry, young man novels. Brilliantly crafted, the characters are only more vibrant through the passing of time. Everything about this novel oozes class: everyone should read it!
August 21, 2020
One of the undervalued voices in the explosion of talent in British working-class literature that so shook up the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sid Chaplin's best-known novel is both a reflection of youth on the breadlines in Newcastle-upon-Tyne during that period that nevertheless feels totally contemporary. As cynical young Arthur Haggerston staggers into adulthood whilst clinging onto his youth, he stumbles from one menial, poorly-paid job to another with the only distractions to his turbulent home life being a drift into gang warfare and doomed snatches of love with two very different women. Whilst still remaining relevant to many of the problems facing today's impoverished youth nearly 60 years on, it's also a moving examination of struggling with the demands that antiquated notions of masculinity place on young men, with an understanding of the highly strung emotions of adolescence that almost touches on Shakespearean.
March 6, 2014
Book at Bedtime
1 - Sid Chaplin's acclaimed novel recounts how 50 years ago a Newcastle boy slipped into the treacherous waters of manhood.
2 - Young Arthur Haggerston has left school in Newcastle in the early 60s with few prospects.
3 - Arthur Haggerston is forced to beg for a job on a building site with his Uncle George.
4 - Teenager Arthur Haggerston discovers his Uncle George is corrupt.
5 - Arthur Haggerston finally meets the father who abandoned him.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 2, 2026
Arthur Haggerston is a failure at school in a rundown, dead-end north-east Tyneside industrial city. He lives at home with his mother (who was long ago abandoned by her husband, Arthur’s father) and Harry, The Lodger who obviously find each other attractive. Arthur spends a lot of time mooching about with his friend Nosey Carron and the gang – the Manor lot - that Nosey commands. Being a gang member means both avoiding and confronting, usually violently, their rivals, the Quaysiders who are run by a knife-carrying, chain-wielding Mick Kelly. Arthur is pushed by his mother into accepting a labouring job with his Uncle George, who has done all right, and on the worksite he meets an older man, George Flack, who’s knocked around a bit and who becomes something of a mentor. He also comes across a chapel where the minister’s daughter, Dorothy, and he take a shine to each other, and another strand in Arthur’s love-life involves Stella, a married woman with a frequently absent husband.
And those are the basics. In terms of the dramas that keep readers’ attention, Arthur’s involvement with the gang and his own sense of leading a life already derelict and undirected lead to crises (that are well shaped by Chaplin) that in turn lead him to some kind of reconciliation with his lot, and his acknowledgement that, in spite of his mother’s anxious antagonism and his feeling that Harry is a cuckoo in the nest, both of them love him and have his interests at heart. Nevertheless, the story is not conclusive: Arthur still doesn’t know where he’s going, but he has a keen sense that he does not want to swim with the shoal. How to do that and make something of his life is the question the reader is left to dwell on.
Nosey and Arthur are best mates. Arthur is, nevertheless, wary of Nosey’s schemes which are usually not on the windy side of the law. He ends up going along with them out of a sense of honouring the bonds of friendship and in the knowledge that Nosey is dependent on both his confidence and support to hold back that sense of directionless dereliction and hopelessness. Nosey’s brother, Crab, is an even more desperate character, and his actions lead to the climax of the novel and Nosey’s surprising 180 degree change of direction.
Gritty stuff, written in a first-person demotic, colloquial English that uses north-eastern phrasings and vocabulary. It’s clearly the same sort of novel as ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’, ‘This Sporting Life’ and ‘A Kind of Loving’, and deserves at least as great a standing as those much better known works.
And those are the basics. In terms of the dramas that keep readers’ attention, Arthur’s involvement with the gang and his own sense of leading a life already derelict and undirected lead to crises (that are well shaped by Chaplin) that in turn lead him to some kind of reconciliation with his lot, and his acknowledgement that, in spite of his mother’s anxious antagonism and his feeling that Harry is a cuckoo in the nest, both of them love him and have his interests at heart. Nevertheless, the story is not conclusive: Arthur still doesn’t know where he’s going, but he has a keen sense that he does not want to swim with the shoal. How to do that and make something of his life is the question the reader is left to dwell on.
Nosey and Arthur are best mates. Arthur is, nevertheless, wary of Nosey’s schemes which are usually not on the windy side of the law. He ends up going along with them out of a sense of honouring the bonds of friendship and in the knowledge that Nosey is dependent on both his confidence and support to hold back that sense of directionless dereliction and hopelessness. Nosey’s brother, Crab, is an even more desperate character, and his actions lead to the climax of the novel and Nosey’s surprising 180 degree change of direction.
Gritty stuff, written in a first-person demotic, colloquial English that uses north-eastern phrasings and vocabulary. It’s clearly the same sort of novel as ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’, ‘This Sporting Life’ and ‘A Kind of Loving’, and deserves at least as great a standing as those much better known works.
April 22, 2023
Watched tv adaptation The Read
Interesting
Interesting
July 22, 2020
Místy se to nečte dobře, páč dospívající hlavní Arthur jde z průseru do průseru, ale stojí to za to. Chaplina jsem do téhle knihy neznal, ale psát rozhodně uměl a ideový rámec mi dokonale konvenuje čili palec hore.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews