Let Me Take You by the Hand

by Jennifer Kavanagh

In 1861, the great journalist and social advocate Henry Mayhew published London Labour and the London Poor, an oral history of those living and working on the streets of Victorian London. Nothing on this scale had been attempted before.

On the surface, the streets of London in 1861 and in 2019 are entirely different places. But dig just a little and the similarities are striking and, in many cases, shocking. Taking Mayhew’s book as inspiration, Jennifer Kavanagh explores the changes and continuities by collecting and mapping stories from today’s London.

Beggars, street entertainers, stalls selling a variety of food, clothes, second-hand goods, thieves and the sex trade are all still predominant. The rise of the gig economy has brought a multitude of drivers and cyclists, delivering and moving goods, transporting meals and people, all organized through smart phones but using the same streets as Mayhew’s informants. The precarity faced by this new workforce would also be familiar to the street-sellers of Mayhew’s day. In terms of resources, gone are the workhouses, almshouses, paupers’ lunatic asylums. Enter shelters, day centres, hostels, and food banks.

Let Me Take You By The Hand is an x-ray of life on the streets today: the stories in their own words of those who work and live in our capital.

Genres: Nonfiction

416 pages, Hardcover

Published June 3, 2021

About the author

Jennifer Kavanagh is a former literary agent, who spent nearly 30 years in publishing. She now sets up micro-credit programmes, mainly in Africa, and is a facilitator for the conflict resolution programme, Alternatives to Violence project. Jennifer lives in London, England. She is a Quaker, an associate tutor at the Quaker study centre, Woodbrooke, and she writes and speaks regularly on the Spirit-led life.
She is the author of twelve books of non-fiction and three novels, the third of which, "And this shall be my dancing day", comes out in July 2023.

Reviews

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressive piece of work by Jennifer* - the hours that must have gone into interviewing people and, importantly, listening to their stories is remarkable. What is so poignant is that Jennifer never passes any judgement on those who she interviews. She lets them say that they need to say and lets you, as a reader, decide for yourself how honest they are being (with themselves as well as with Jennifer). This is an insight into the real people of London. Not the city slickers types in their designer outfits and penthouse apartments.

Some of the tales in this book are harrowing and have been even more harrowing in the light of COVID. How some of the people interviewed have coped during pandemic, given some were already leading a hand-to-mouth existence, is not known - but that the pandemic, and the associated lockdowns, would have been anything other than devastating is unlikely. Jennifer writes in the preface that she hopes the book will not be an account of London that has "gone into history", and I share that hope.

* = I know Jennifer, so disclaimer etc

[Nina Tweddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a book to read all in one go, but best to be taken in small bits. I kept it by my bed and would read a page or two at bedtime.

The premise of the book is that the author simply talks to many of the people she sees on the streets of London and asks simple questions about who they are, what they are doing. They may be working legally or otherwise. May be rich or poor. She tries not to be judgemental but simply provide us with stories of the vast array of humankind that she encounters in her walks.

As a Londoner I really enjoyed this book. Not sure how interesting others would find it. It reminded me of the reasons I will always love London and also why you should avoid being judgemental with the people you meet.

There are joyful stories and ones that are sad. The conversations obviously pre-date the Covid pandemic and I did find myself wondering how many of the characters coped during the past 18 months.

[Chez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's been a while since I read a non-fiction book that inspired me to think about academic stuff again, after a long time of trying hard not to think about academic stuff since breaking my brain during my masters. I have a lot of time for a book that dedicates it's pages to letting people tell their stories. This reminded me of when I first read 'the phenomenonology of working class experience' by Charlesworth, another amazing and inspiring book. By contrast, I picked up another sociology book at the same time as 'let me take you by the hand', and was briefly intrigued by the promise that it would say clever insightful things, but then put it down again and left it cos it was just all about trying to be clever. And I can't be arsed with that.

[Ben Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this. Compassionate, evocative and non-judgemental. Somehow created a feeling of positivity despite some dark subject matter. Loved London before, love it even more now.

[James Tidd]

In 1861, the social advocate and journalist Henry Mayhew published his London Labour and the London Poor, which is an oral history of those living and working on the streets of Victorian London.

Published 160 years later using Mayhew's publication, Jennifer Kavanagh, using Mayhew's book as an inspiration, explores the changes and continuities by collecting and mapping stories from today's London.

Let me take you by the hand, which is a lyric in Ralph McTell's song, Streets of London, is an X-ray of life on the streets today, the stories in their own words, of beggars, street entertainers, and stallholders, who work and live in England's capital city.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great exploration of life in and on the streets of London.

[Jeni Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent concepts and nice enough read, but did not feel as tightly edited or composed as I would have liked. There were some parallels made with Mayhew, but I could have used more analysis of the changes and differences.

[Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly not bad but a bit disjointed. Didn't love how it was organized. If I hadn't read "Londoners" before this the score might have been higher.