![]() ![]() He was the product of a large, strong family and his politics did not have to be learned from books. Skinner was, however, born with one advantage over Johnson. His formidable mother, Lucy, took in washing to make ends meet. Born in 1932 in Clay Cross, a Derbyshire pit town, he was one of nine children of a miner blacklisted for his union activities in the general strike. Photograph: Don McPhee/Guardianĭennis Skinner, like Alan Johnson, grew up in extreme poverty. “I was perpetuating the male lifestyle adopted by my father, if not the excesses to which he took it.” Just in time, he steps back from the slippery slope. “I am conscious that this creates a fair impression of Andy Capp,” he writes in a flash of self-recognition. It was not a golden age – there was far too much booze, cigarettes and neglect of the home front – and he does not idealise. The strength of this volume lies in its depiction of working-class life in the 1960s and 70s before market forces and the coming of Thatcher inflicted such damage on the social fabric. The book is full of little pen portraits of former workmates he has not seen for decades and yet he is able to bring them effortlessly to life. His recall and eye for detail are impressive. Before long he has joined the local Labour party and been elected to the local committee of the Post Office Workers’ Union, becoming a delegate to the union’s annual conference where his talents were soon noticed by the union’s avuncular general secretary, Tom Jackson.Īs with his earlier memoir, Johnson’s writing style is easy, relaxed, self-deprecating. His political hero is Jimmy Reid who led the occupation of the Upper Clyde shipyard. The postal workers’ strike of 1971 marks the formative moment in his political awakening. Along the way he finds time to educate himself, in addition to finding time for beer and bingo at weekends. Johnson is nothing if not a grafter, often working 12-hour shifts, six days a week. Against the odds, the marriage lasts more than 20 years and produces three well-adjusted children. ![]() At the age of 17 he marries a woman four years older than him who already has a child by another man. His love life gets off to an unpromising start. His real ambition is to become a pop star, an ambition thwarted when his instruments (uninsured, of course) are stolen. This volume sees our hero migrate from shelf-stacking to enrolling as a postman, first at the sorting office in Barnes, west London, and later in Slough. The first volume ended with Johnson leaving school, aged 15, and starting work as a shelf-stacker in a supermarket. Mr Postman is the sequel to This Boy, Johnson’s wonderful and bestselling first volume of memoirs, in which he recounted his early years. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |