Book Review
An interesting book, this. It is penned by the Guardian's Northern Editor, Martin Wainwright; a northerner who returned to live in Leeds in 1987, taking up the aforementioned post after 12 years in London, to be greeted by his new neighbour with the words: "You'll need a cup of tea". Son of a Liberal MP with a social conscience, Richard Wainwright, MW's Methodist background comes across in this vigorous and upbeat appraisal of the North.
Wainwright seeks to dispel the myth that things are 'Grim Up North', with a mix of anecdotes, history and insight gathered from his years as Northern Editor. He portrays the north as inherently industrious and accepting, highlighting in particular the contributions of reforming philanthropists such as Sir Titus Salt and Sir Joseph Rowntree, as well as the beneficial effects of immigration (he claims the region is second only to London in numbers of immigrants). He is forthright in stating that the book is designed to persuade northerners to stay in the north and others to move here.
He does particularly well in highlighting the growth in the heritage and creative industries in the North, highlighting examples like the regional and city organisations of Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle, which have initiated 'regeneration' in those areas. He also highlights the role of European money in creating this perceived Northern renaissance of the arts; something that so many on the left seem unwilling to accept, preferring to denigrate everything to do with Europe. We would not have the Sage or the Baltic, or indeed the Tyne and Wear metro system, without financial support from the European Union.
The book might be criticised on several fronts: firstly, that this is the view of a privileged Baby Boomer, who has had the advantages that those born in the 1980s, say, will mostly never see: free University education and generous post-WW2 Welfare State; an astronomical rise in property prices from the 1970s to today. Reading this book, many might argue: 'well, you would say that, you bourgeois liberal!' One might highlight the lack of spirit in many born into a benefit-dependency culture, whether they are in Rotherham, St Helens or Easington. One might look to films like this - http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/10/shed-your-tears-and-walk-away-review - as representative of a sadder side to northern culture in the post-industrial age.
But then again, Wainwright is persuasive when he highlights a tendency in some to accentuate the negative; he highlights the novels of David Peace - the Red Riding quadrilogy and the excellent The Damned United - and is correct to stress that such bleakness is not the general experience of all, or even most, people living in the north. There is an interesting part where he mentions the Morley Independents who sit on Leeds council, and their mix of local pride in their town and their bloody-minded resentment at their larger neighbour. He could do with exploring this mindset more, as it exists in large swathes of the provincial north, i.e. the less-metropolitan, those not living in the shadow of Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and York. Yet, of course he is right to highlight the tradition and independence of market towns like Richmond, which exist in a different tradition altogether.
The book demonstrates the vast differences that exist in the North; Wainwright's glowing evocation of the philanthropic and business-like North seems a long way from my experience, though I do recognise his positive estimation of Newcastle Upon Tyne as a city. His is a vision that encompasses the Quakers who built humane model villages for their workforces and the bohemian socialist vision of someone like "Mr Manchester", Tony Wilson, the creator of Factory Records. He evokes much of the dry, northern humour that I love: Alan Bennett, The League of Gentlemen and that wonderfully droll scene of Brian Glover et al in that pub on the wild moors in An American Werewolf in London.
Wainwright is admirably careful about eulogising the trade union movement, making the good point that it was perhaps another kind of dependency - people taking for granted the good deal that their card-carrying membership gave them within their communities, leaving them adrift when that was taken away by Thatcherism. He prefers to praise others over Scagill, whom he characterises as nice in person but damaging in his political tactics. He hails the likes of Elinor Brent Dyer - South Shields-born writer of the anti-Nazi Chalet School series of books - Sir Ken Morrison, northern founder of the supermarket chain, and Barrie Rutter, actor-manager of the Northern Broadsides theatre company, who perform Shakespeare and classical plays in broad northern dialect. I have had the pleasure to see several of their plays - including Victorian melodrama The Bells in Richmond and Othello with Lenny Henry at the West Yorkshire Playhouse - and meet the man Rutter, a great northern character. He might also have explored the literary legacy not just of Wordsworth and the Brontes, but of profoundly 'local' writers like Ted Hughes, Basil Bunting and Alan Garner.
The book will be especially useful in combatting southern ignorance about life in the north. Wainwright does accept that things are not entirely rosy up north - nor are they in the south, of course - but that he feels a one-sided case is required to counter many of the lazy stereotypes that many London journalists employ. It should go without saying that we have magnificent, evocative countryside - the Peak District, the Lake District, the North York Moors, Northumberland - on our doorsteps, but maybe it does need stressing to the ignorant! He does well to emphasise lesser-known beauty in close proximity to the industrial connurbations: the countryside cpatured in Kes, the evocative industrial landscape of Weardale that so enthralled the poet W.H. Auden. He points to Manningham in Bradford as 'a monument to social inclusion in stone', seeing the riots there as exceptions to the rule and argues that areas like Chapeltown in Leeds are misrepresented by the media.
It should also be mentioned that there are many superb photos from a variety of photographers, which form an instructive illustration to many of his points.
Ultimately, this is the sort of book tailor-made for someone like me; a relatively privileged northerner and Guardian-reader, who is fascinated by culture, society and history. I am not the unabashed optimist that Wainwright is here, but I can recognise much to be proud of in northern culture. I have in actuality lived all but one and a half years of my life in the north, and plan to live many more here. I am in complete agreement with MW's central argument that we should embrace a common Northern heritage and focus less on petty local rivalries and resentments. Thoroughly recommended to northerners and southerners, alike.
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