English Journey, by J. B. Priestley

The Pulteney Arms, August 8th 2019. Apologies from MW, JH, CW.

I (Steve) chose this book because I'm confused and puzzled by this country’s decision-making in the last few years. I wanted to read and discuss a book that provided a context against which to make more sense of where this country seems to be headed in 2019.

This report is longer than I usually like to post, but people had a lot to say! We'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the history and the future of England.

Priestley was not well-known to many members, though some knew his plays. The book is an account of a journey Priestley takes around England in 1933 – to a fairly random selection of locations which seem partly to be chosen on the basis that he’s put a play on there, some family connection, or friends have recommend contacts.

To me, the book was full of observations that reverberated, either in the way they underlined a massive contrast with our lives today, or echoed things that are still prevalent. In the first few pages he meets a travelling salesman who talks of:

“I was in the wireless trade one time, about six years ago, in Birmingham. But mind you, wireless then and wireless now–oh!” and he gave a short laugh– “different thing altogether. Look at the developments. Look at the way prices have come down and quality’s gone up.” Precisely how we talk of consumer technology today.

Priestley writes in quite a modern idiom – personally, conversationally and often  humorously (such as his beautifully-written description of his hero fantasy, which we all succumb to from time to time but few would care to admit to, least of all in print), which makes him very readable. He carries you with him even when you are perhaps a bit stunned by what seems to us to be shocking political incorrectness. His splendidly grumpy comments about hotels are mixed in with what now appear to be unguarded and downright offensive observations and generalisations about regional types and in particular the Liverpool Irish. And how dismissive his comments seem today, about women and their (in his eyes) predilection for boring unchallenging work, not to mention their physical appearance. One hopes this says more about the times than the man.

His humanity, his recollections from the not very distant past of his wartime service and experiences, made one realise that this man had seen some things. His socialist colours take a while to fully unfurl and only do so as he travels North to the areas most fully hit by the post-war depression. His passions seem to rise as he sees more, but he manages to remain for the most part informative, entertaining and engaging. Shotton Colliery does for him though.

These industries are now more or less gone, yet the tribulations affecting the populations of these often quite short-lived communities mirror the problems facing many today – no work, little support, and not enough entertainment. How astonished he would be by the internet though, and perhaps amazed that the creative arts have survived as well as they have, given the changes in society, industry and commerce.

Andrew enjoyed the way Priestley ate, drank and smoked his way round the country – just as austerity was approaching: a Socialist commentator being chauffeured around in a big Daimler. There was passionate detail in there: the Liverpool prostitutes and their mixed -race children; the boy tobogganing down the slag heap. Something of a ‘no filter’ splurge of opinion, and the old-fashioned views which were often based on ‘traditional’ assumptions rather than hard evidence (eg ‘travelling salesmen are generally good fellows’) meant he could sound patronising and condescending.

Priestley was very interesting on Bournville village, initially very in favour, but he wasn’t afraid to show his own opinions changing when describing how Australia had responded when the model was attempted over there: rather than spend all that money on facilities that keep us ‘on the premises’, why not give us the money and let us decide how to spend it?

Andrew noted that Priestley spoke to very few women, and that the end of the book, as his homeward journey is thwarted by a pea-souper, perhaps presages environmental chaos to come.

Willm was struck by the feeling that Priestley was describing this in order to get something done about it – but what could he do? Does the responsibility lie with the rest of us, and if so, how do we make something happen? Somewhat stereotypical views for the 1930s – it’s grim up north. In places rather boring, and though leavened by a cunning use of phrase, each town seemed to get worse than the last. Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier was mentioned in comparison – perhaps a more focused job as a socialist manifesto.

Chris B enjoyed the book but found it a bit wordy, with a slightly hectoring tone. His views on women, the blues and the Irish were negative and the worse for it. But the descriptions of the effect of industrialisation, and the way the working class continued to be the fodder to provide wealth for others were powerful.

Chris particularly enjoyed the description of working in the theatre – what motivated people then seems very close to what encourages them nowadays: it can’t be the money… The club was new to the concept of civic theatres. The football descriptions could have been written today: it’s like a weekly drug. No mention other than references to ‘Mr Hitler’ of the coming war (still 5 or 6 years away of course).

A strong sense of conflict between the improvements in working conditions and the invention of ‘diggers that can do the work of 800 men’ – absorbed and concerned by the prospect of change.

Despite the fact that Mark T generally doesn’t like non-fiction he got stuck in and found himself enjoying the book. He felt compassionate about some of the passages described, although it often made him feel like a soft Southerner. He commented on the fact that for Priestley Bristol was a prosperous and successful city – whereas in the 1970s it was a huge wasteland. The passages on the Cotswolds are easily forgotten as the author gets into his stride northwards, but they were full of relevance and interest. The description of Coventry before WW2 were affecting. And there was a lot in the book about ‘mating’ – how it was gone about through the rituals of the time, and there were resonant words about the desolation of Sundays. Possibly rather rushed final chapter – as though he just wanted to get through the fog and put his feet up by the fire.

Richard found a lot to like in the book: the style, the detailed observation of individuals, a woman who looked as though she was ‘busy hating somebody’, the way he used small but meaningful details to differentiate characters. In writing about the Cotswolds he made on ask ‘why have they remained so unchanged’? Because of the influx on moneyed outsiders, who Priestley already identified as being the reason for their preservation.

Priestley wrote of a society in which class was slowly being eradicated: the advent of the classless society. The book was illuminated by passionate descriptions of simple features of life: local papers; the way a waiter talks to ‘sir’ about his steak in a completely different way to the way they would talk about any other foodstuff.

Priestley shows the effects of war still resonating, as he sees the army still deployed around the countryside. His reunion evening was very descriptive and underlined how relatively little time had passed since the Armistice. ‘All the good people had been killed’ and thus he had taken up his career in their absence. The way he wrote about the Quaker movement, valuing their contribution and yet questioning was it too interventionist? Richard also raised the point that Priestley makes about world religions: why our god? Why do middle eastern religions work and inspire people to follow without question?

Mark W went through ‘a bit of a journey’ with the book and particularly with JB himself.

To start with he found him rather tiresome, patronising and a bit of a prig. It took him a while to get used to this view of the comfortably off successful author and playwright doing a tour of the great unwashed.

This attitude continued through Birmingham and the Black Country but by the Leicester chapter Mark was starting to warm to him. It was a particular description of the hunting, shooting and fishing class: ‘Men and women whose whole lives are organised in order that they may ride in pursuit of stray foxes two or three days a week, who risk their necks for a vermin’s brush, who will deny themselves this and that to spend money on packs of hounds, who spare no pains to turn themselves into twelfth century oafs, are past my comprehension’. He forgave JB his patronising comments as the main theme of the book settled into his outrage and anger at the treatment of the (Northern) working classes during the depression years, following the failure of the Victorian expansion.

For John, Priestley’s English Journey is very much a book of its time – as a commentator on England and the English he holds that space between Dickens and Bryson. Initially put off by his rather wordy and somewhat pompous style, he warmed to him and the rhythm of his style.

Among the pleasures of the book were his narrative observations such as the description of the Black Country as a “smouldering carpet” and “immense hollow of smoke”… his descriptions of a world much changed by wars including Bristol and Coventry… his pithier comments – for example that Bradford “was a city entirely without charm”… his bouts of anger at the injustice and inequality of the society of the 30’s.  He particularly liked JB’s comments about kids throwing stones on the roof of a warehouse in the Black Country and that “who could blame them” and enjoyed his little rant about the wretchedness of Sunday evenings in the big industrial cities

At the same time JB was full of self-awareness, including the impact of his own status and personality. His reminder of how awful English hotels and food were made one give quiet thanks for Premier Inns

And for Chris W, he read part of it while travelling around Yorkshire. It really makes you glad to be alive now and not then, and also to be a southerner and not northerner (though his parents were born in Liverpool and Leeds). This book has so many good features: Priestley‘s prose is very easy to read and the subjects that he’s chosen on his journey are fascinating. His description of the poverty of the many northern cities is heart rending , particularly  the scenes he describes when leaving the Adelphi hotel in Liverpool and being conducted around an old seamans’ hostel and the decaying Regency terraces filled with prostitutes.

Like a number of members Chris said that he’d made a great number of notes while reading this book – more than usual. It seems to have proved to be very effective as a touchstone to the past. Perhaps these were innocent days in comparison with 2019, but clearly they were not necessarily better. And yet – arguably the issues are just the same: the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor – it’s just a global phenomenon rather than a national one nowadays. The far right rear their heads at regular intervals (much like Hitler in 1933) and while some member of the club are confident that we have learned enough to be able to manage our destinies in a more peaceful and less confrontational way in the future, others feel strongly that the evidence so far simply doesn’t support this.