A Kind of Loving
Suzy Prince breaks out the Babycham and waxes lyrical about her
enduring passion for the British Kitchen Sink fiction of
the Fifties and Sixties.
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'money marries money,
lad. Be careful she doesn't break your heart... get
one of your own class. Go to your own people.' (Room at the
Top)
Much has been written and talked about over the years of
the social realist films of the 1950s and 60s. And recently
there was a resurgence of interest, with the BFI's release
on DVD of 'A Taste of Honey' and 'Saturday Night and Sunday
Morning'. But what you don't hear about anything like as
much these days is the original books, plays and stories
which these films were adapted from. It's time to set the
balance right, and pay a heartfelt homage to these groundbreaking
classics.
The so-called Kitchen Sink novel/ play/ short story etc, changed
the face of modern literature forever. These works sprang from
seemingly nowhere, and suddenly Britain was inundated with
'realistic' tales of the lives and concerns of various young
working class protagonists. Authors were concentrating on the
typical rather than the exceptional, relating the mundane details
of everyday life and the frustrations experienced by those
with huge limitations placed on them because of their backgrounds,
families, social conventions and ultimately, themselves. The
stories were littered with dead-end jobs, unwanted pregnancies,
stifling families, shotgun weddings and sexual frustration.
The style differed greatly from author to author, but the common
factor was the overwhelming and brutal honesty of the |
writing. There are no typical heroes and villains here. Just
people in all of their confusing, mixed up glory.
A lot has been written down the years about the angry young men
at the heart of these novels, plays and films. But it should be
noted that the female characters had a fairly rough time of it
too. Sweet but irritating Ingrid, in 'A Kind of Loving' ends up
with a husband who doesn't really love her. Ditto the middle class
Susan in 'Room at the Top' who is unaware that she's being married
for her money and social status. These tales are littered with
unwanted pregnancies, or widowed, overweight and frustrated landladies.
They have had accusations of misogyny levelled at them, but I don't
agree with this judgement. The authors were quite simply telling
it like it was. There is very little morality in these tales. 'Doing
the right thing' generally leads to a life of compromise. Acting
like a selfish pig also got you nowhere. It wasn't just grim up
north, it was grim absolutely bloody everywhere.
'He threw his money about like a man with no arms.' (A Taste of
Honey)
| As a teenager
growing up in various market towns in the midlands, the effect
that the novel 'Billy Liar's' bohemian and free spirited girlfriend
Liz had on me was enormous. This was of course later borne
out by the film with Julie Christie's stellar performance as
this beautiful girl who might just save Billy from a life of
dreariness (but ultimately doesn't. I feel frustrated even
just thinking about how close he came to escape). Aged 14,
I borrowed it from my local library, attracted by the title.
Liz pops in and out of Billy's life. Keith Waterhouse describes
her effect on Billy like this: 'it was part of the nature of
Liz to disappear from time to time and I was proud of her bohemianism,
crediting her with a soul-deep need to get away and straighten
out her personality, or to find herself or something... I had
no real feeling for her, but there was always some kind of
pain when she went away, and when the pain yielded nothing
I converted it, like an alchemist busy with the seaweed, into
something approaching love.' That was all I needed to know.
I was not alone in my small-town frustrations. And somebody
loved her, somehow or other. I blame these books for a lifelong
attraction to brainy, creative working class men, who are usually
penniless. It may have led to some personal hardship for me,
but these just too damned |
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sexy to resist. While my classmates
dreamt of Keanu Reeves and Wham, my head was full of Arthur Seaton,
Joe Lampton and Billy Liar. Strange, but true.
Our teacher says God made everything. What are factories for then?
I (Up the Junction)
Extracted from a longer article which appeared in issue 4 of Nude
(Sept/ Oct 2004) |
