The Sunlit Uplands

This coming-of-age memoir tells of a child of very modest background, growing up in an aspirant household and observing the social mores and practices of the immediate post-war period – not least the intense sociability of that class, the importance of radio and cinema in everyday lives, the omnipresence of cigarette smoke, and the limits to getting around – and a predominantly working-class village before it was gentrified.

It was the end of the Victorian era. Repression was draped across the young like a heavy, suffocating blanket. For adults, it was a question of a wink and a nod, to be indulged by the inside pages of the Sunday News of the World, which in turn helped to relieve the boredom of that day of the week. 

Discipline in schools was strict and capital punishment not an issue. It was also, though, the dawn of the welfare state, whose provisions for education were of immense benefit to the author – an experience that will resonate with many others of that time and will be a benchmark for those who live in a less generous one. It was the age of the eleven-plus exam, the passing of which entitled you to an education that could be very good indeed, and then, if parental means failed, a free education – everything included – at university. 

Those who experienced it, as did the author, look back at it with fond eyes.