Presently, I am waiting rather nervously for England's World Cup match with Croatia to commence. Kick off in Dallas is at 9pm British Summertime. We have some brilliant players and if they stay fit and gel together my country could go far in this tournament. But this is something that optimistic England fans have said on plenty of previous occasions. Disappointment sometimes seems inevitable but you never know, maybe 2026 will be different. Come on England!
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I found it very readable. One of those novels you want to get back to when matters of everyday life get in the way. I finished it in seven days.
I spotted it in a charity shop and of course it had a particular appeal because in the last six months I have been in regular contact with Barry Hines's younger brother - Richard.
Barry Hines was not an especially prolific writer. He only wrote nine novels and "The Heart of It" was the only novel he published in the 1990s. I noticed the dedication: "For My Mother and Father".
Set in South Yorkshire the novel sees a prodigal son called Cal returning to his roots. His father, who was once a coal miner and ardent trade unionist, has suffered a debilitating stroke and his ageing mother Maisie is charged with looking after him. Cal's only sibling, Joe, had left the former mining village to find work in Manchester.
Cal himself lives in southern France with his French filmstar girlfriend. He is essentially a scriptwriter and has links with Hollywood. He has made plenty of money and in that sense has been rather successful but he is shallow and rather devious. His father Harry, urges him to write something of value, something meaningful.
Cal's trip back to his roots and his South Yorkshire homeland begins to stir something in him. The Coal Strike of 1984-85 is still fresh in people's minds along with the way in which Thatcher harnessed the police and the military to crush Britain's miners and destroy the coal industry. These hardworking people were undoubtedly the salt of the earth and certainly not "the enemy within" as Thatcher described them.
Sadly Harry dies and Cal finds himself drawn away from the Hollywood tinsel and all those dreadfully superficial films. He is at last ready to write about things that mattered in his community..."The Heart of It":-
Congrats on England's win!
ReplyDeleteIn the second half they were very convincing.
DeleteI'm having a cold glass of pomegranate juice to celebrate England's 4-2 victory.
ReplyDeleteThe Heart of It. An unknown Barry Hines.
Mining Men - Britain's Last Kings of the Coalface (2025) by Emily P Webber.
Although raised in South Yorkshire, Emily knew little about coal and coal miners.
In her search for the last colliers she travelled from Durham to the Kent coast.
Gritty photos imprinted on the page, like the fitter and blacksmith's workshop at
Snowdon Colliery and the demolition of Wolstanton Colliery in 1988.
Miners were trapped in the flooded Lofthouse Colliery in West Yorkshire in1973.
I was down a coal mine. The thought of being drowned there is my Room 101,
the place of your worst nightmare from Nineteen Eighty Four.
You must be the only jock in Christendom to have ever toasted an England victory! Here in England most fans root for the Scots when we are not playing them! My mother came from South Yorkshire mining stock and I am proud to have that connection... they were very brave man to work in the bowels of the earth, day after day.
DeleteCheers for England!! Hooray! I should look up who is playing who and who is winning, I haven't kept up with the games at all.
ReplyDeleteEven Australia are playing at The World Cup! They beat Turkey and will play Trumplandia tomorrow! Up The Aussies!
DeleteThe book sounds like something I'd enjoy. The quote puzzles me. Who is Karl? And what is a peeling hoarding?
ReplyDeleteThank God God is not involved in the World Cup! How would He choose which team or individual player to prefer over others, when undoubtedly He (and other gods) are invoked by each and every team and their followers?
Cal's father was a communist and he named his first son Karl after Karl Marx but Karl hated that name and when he left the village he changed his first name to Cal. A hoarding is the proper English name for a billboard.
DeleteGod is involved in The World Cup. He supports England.
I " heard" the last 2 goals after I went to bed........the pub a couple of hundred yards away has a huge TV screen in the garden and the roar that went up when the goals were scored was quite loud! Must have been a large crowd there!
ReplyDeleteYou should have been down at the beer garden in your England strip - cheering the lads on. Not snoring in your curlers and hairnet like Nora Batty!
DeleteI'm not a football fan so all this is going on around me. I wish them well but I don't get excited about any of it.
ReplyDelete