Don’t You Dare Tell Me That!
At school, pupils and teachers bullied Louise Powell because her parents got Income Support. She found solace and friendship in greyhounds and racing. But then the bullies came back.
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Spotlight
The Power of a Happy Meal
"This was not about nutrition. It was not about filling them up. It was absolutely not about the peace of sharing a meal. It was about belonging in a society that had no place for us."
A Guide to Running Hot by Dreda Say Mitchell
Dreda Say Mitchell was told that “someone like her” would never be accepted as a writer. But in 2004 her east London-set novel Running Hot became a hit – and changed British crime fiction.
David Olusoga on Home and Belonging
How the working-class historian learned to reject his rejection
The Working Class Library Episode 8: Running Hot by Dreda Say Mitchell
Lee Child joins Claire Malcolm, Chief Executive of New Writing North, and Richard Benson, editor of The Bee, to discuss Dreda Say Mitchell’s groundbreaking 2004 novel Running Hot.
The Working Class Library Episode 7: This Sporting Life by David Storey
David Peace joins Claire Malcolm, Chief Executive of New Writing North, and Richard Benson, editor of The Bee, to discuss David Storey’s classic, controversial 1960 kitchen-sink novel, This Sporting Life.
A Guide to This Sporting Life by David Storey
Georgia Poplett’s introduction to David Storey’s novel and film about a young rugby league star in 1960s Yorkshire, and its place in the Northern Realist and Angry Young Men movements.
A Guide to Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Siobhan McShane’s introduction to the plot, characters and historical background of Frank McCourt’s working-class memoir of growing up in poverty in Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s.
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On the Joys of Secretly Reading at Work
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Class & the Health Lottery
Why can’t all the fat, lazy, poor people be as healthy and successful as right-wing political commentators?
