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Walter Greenwood (1903–1974)

Autor de Love on the Dole

12+ Obras 382 Miembros 9 Reseñas 2 Preferidas

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Obras de Walter Greenwood

Obras relacionadas

The Old School: Essays by Divers Hands (1934) — Contribuidor — 30 copias
Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood (1966-01-05) (1706) — Associated Name — 1 copia

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Hanky Park in Salford, where the bulk of Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole takes place, no longer exists. It is now a rather tired old urban shopping precinct supplemented by tower blocks, completely alien in appearance from the setting of this depressing Depression-era novel. Dawney's Hill, where two of Greenwood's characters go to court one another, no longer exists either, to my knowledge. The men and women of Greenwood's Salford in the 1930s lament how Eccles Old Road – once known as 'Millionaires' Mile' due to the line of industrialists' mansions that linked Eccles with Manchester (pg. 12) – has degenerated since the prime days when cotton (and coal) was king. It too has changed; if I want to check, I need only walk a few minutes from my front door.

I'm a native of Salford; I can attest that this book rings true. The places, the mentality of some of the people, the rain ("does nowt else i' this hole" (pg. 16)) and the thick accent (even if Greenwood's use of dialect does go a bit overboard at times). The story has the air of an early kitchen-sink drama, and though this isn't something that usually appeals to me, it is done well here. The characters are vivid and they mesh well; the book takes a while to get going, but it rewards perseverance. Even the political character, Larry Meath, doesn't become an authorial mouthpiece; refreshingly, his message is communicated more by the effects of the plot upon him than by any didactic speechifying. Greenwood's novel is literary and sincere, rather than over-earnest and bolshie, which is perhaps why it retains its power.

It might seem strange that I offer myself as a guarantor of the book's authenticity, considering it takes place nearly ninety years ago. Surely Salford has changed significantly? Well, as someone who is not only a native and resident of Salford but someone currently unemployed, I have to say: unfortunately, it hasn't. Hanky Park may be gone – and the coal, too – but the circumstances and lack of opportunities are, for many people, much the same. Love on the Dole proved even more uncomfortable and resonant than I expected. Not only does Greenwood accurately convey the sheer, mind-warping hopelessness and abjectness of long-term unemployment (I find it impossible to choose between examples because so many lines ring true, even ninety years later), but it is unnerving how accurately he pins down the fool-proof methods used to exploit people who are in this situation through no fault of their own. Everything Greenwood's characters do has the air of "temporary relief at the expense of further entanglement" (pg. 24); "you gave a week of your life, every week, so that you might have a hovel for shelter, an insufficiency of food and five bob left over for to clothe yourself" (pg. 150).

Of course, the standard of living has increased since 1933; though unemployed, I'm writing this on a computer, can clothe myself, eat decent food, and so on. The dole is still there as an option and it's slightly more reliable than the dreaded 'Means Test' that is imposed by the government on Greenwood's characters, but it's still a humiliating trap; "what the hell use was there in discussing homes, marriage? It was nauseating in its mockery" (pg. 176). It's still the case that if you do cobble some work together and you try to make rent, after a while you've paid the cost of building a house many times over (pg. 12). There are no coal piles or slums anymore, of course, though there are streets they don't put on the brochure. When I say much has remained the same, I'm referring instead to the general mechanisms of the society, that make you feel as though you are refuse passing through a waste system; a by-product of someone else's money-maker; something that is to be disposed of, rather than candidates in a (scoff) meritocracy. When Harry, one of Greenwood's protagonists, gets trained up for no reason other than that he was there (pg. 47), I thought of the degree mills I was thoughtlessly hustled through in the present day; when he is sacked after he finishes his apprenticeship because the company doesn't want to pay engineers when they can just train more apprentices (pp91, 154), I thought of the top-down push for apprenticeships advocated by businesses nowadays. (It's arguably exploited even more now, as apprentice wages are subsidised by the government.) Life might have become less near the bone, but it's no less real, and no less hopeless if you happen to be born in the wrong place. Then, as now, getting a job depends on connections; you've got "a cat in hell's chance" if you've got no one to speak for you (pg. 232).

Salford is an area that has always been in flux. Its people have always been experimented on; from the Industrial Revolution which used them as economic batteries, through the years of the 'Means Test' and pauperdom and post-industrial hangover, to the reckless New Labour experiment of degree inflation and economic speculation, the cost of which was borne by my own generation. (To complete the bare-arsed cheek of it, Tony Blair's son is the one now profiting off this degradation by spearheading a lucrative new apprenticeship program.) The town is now known largely for the top-down MediaCity experiment; the regenerated quayside that, in Greenwood's time, brought the "melancholy hoot of a ship's siren… from the Salford Docks" (pg. 13 – there are no ships anymore.) The area looks nice now, but it's textbook gentrification; the native Salfordians are being shunted away rather than having their lives improved. A dispiriting lesson from Greenwood's book is that nothing changes, even if some of the landscape and the place names change.

What, then, was the value in reading Love on the Dole? It was a thoroughly depressing read, and was designed to be so. It communicates the hollow horror of unemployment and disenfranchisement uncomfortably well, but those in that situation don't need it reflected back at them and those that aren't don't care anymore, if they ever did. Greenwood's book was a bestseller in its time, as people were horrified at the conditions and the helplessness so many people lived in; I believe if you wrote a similarly-intentioned work nowadays it wouldn't even get published, considering the gatekeepers of the publishing industry, and if it did it wouldn't make a mark. For all the copies it sold, Greenwood's book didn't change anything either.

So why did I like the book? Partly it's because of the opportunity to vent, and to have my frustrations validated and reflected back at me, even if the enormity of them – and their historical permanence – can become imposing. Partly it's because this is a good book; the writing may be a bit too busy for my own personal tastes, but it's more than capable and it brings out its characters well. Partly I enjoyed the novelty of reading about places I know but as they were in an earlier time, a time when the area was "the Two Cities", Salford and Manchester (pg. 11), rather than Salford being seen as a maligned supplicant to the city of Manchester. (Not many people know this, but in the pre-Industrial days, the county now known as Greater Manchester was called 'the Hundred of Salford'.) Millionaire's Mile might now only be an old road, but if you look for it the landscape is still recognisable deep underneath. The people here have for generations been trying to overcome their circumstances and break out into open country, however complete the hopelessness of the situation appears both to Greenwood and to us. Maybe the answer as to why they do so is so unfathomable and contradictory as to be beyond the scope of any book.
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MikeFutcher | 8 reseñas más. | Jan 27, 2021 |
“Altogether, a pleasant place, marred by activities of unpleasant people whose qualities, perhaps, are sad reflections of sadder environments.”

Love on the Dole centres on the Hardcastle family and their neighbours in Hanky Park,a poor part of Salford. Mr Hardcastle, a miner, Mrs Hardcastle a housewife and their children Harry and Sally along with their neighbours represent a working-class economy which was always fragile and was further damaged during the 1930's as a consequences of the Great Depression.

The novel focuses mainly on Harry Hardcastle who having left school at 14 initially works at a pawnbroker’s, a job which he hates because he does not regard it as 'manly' before getting taken on as an indentured apprentice engineer at a local factory, Marlowe's. Harry's indenture is guaranteed for seven years after which he believes that he will become a qualified engineer and as such set for life.

However, as the worldwide economic slump hits the British economy Harry and his peers are dismissed as soon as they qualify for a full wage: ‘they now were fully qualified engineers. They also were qualified to draw the dole’ only to be replaced by younger 'apprentices' who can be paid a lower rate of pay. Harry’s hopes and dreams is now in ruins but initially he is not too downcast as he believes that as a qualified engineer he will be able to get another position but he is soon disillusioned as there is none.

The focus of the novel then shifts to Harry’s sister, Sally, who falls in love with Larry Meath, a qualified engineer and political activist in the Labour party. Larry is relatively well paid, has no dependants and is generally well liked by his neighbours who he helps with troublesome bureaucracies. Larry in short is a good catch. However, just as Harry’s dreams have been shattered so too are Sally’s. Shortly before she and Larry are to wed Larry is also made redundant but worse is to follow when he catches pneumonia and dies.

In the meantime Mr Hardcastle has also been made redundant when the coal mine where he worked closes and the government in an attempt to save money introduces a Means Test and have decided to stop Harry's and his father's dole money meaning that Sally, who works at a local textile mill, is the only family breadwinner. As unemployment increases in Hanky Park, it becomes the rule rather than the exception. To make matters worse Harry's girlfriend, Helen, finds herself pregnant meaning that they have to marry in order to be ‘respectable’.

Larry's demise on the face of appears to be quite a telling. He appears to be Hanky Park's only working-class intellectual and his death on the face of it seems to leave it's residents trapped and apparently with no hope of change.

Although this is a novel that is set in a very specific time in history when the British and the world economy was under considerable strain I believe that its central story still resonates in Britain today. Well paid working class jobs particularly in manufacturing appear difficult to find and even those that exist seem to have been undermined by the introduction of zero hours contracts where workers have no idea from one week to the next what they will earn. We also have a situation where good rental properties are becoming ever more unaffordable for working class people meaning that they are compelled to live in substandard accommodation where over time there rental payments far exceed the value of the property. Also we seem to have an establishment (in this case represented by the social security office staff and the Police) seem to be indifferent to the workers plight. I enjoyed the writers style which to me seems to really capture the despair that they all feel but I also enjoyed the social message that it conveyed. Walter Greenwood had been unemployed for three years when he wrote this his first book and it rapidly changed his life from being an unemployed Salford worker to a best-selling author, a remarkable achievement.
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½
 
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PilgrimJess | 8 reseñas más. | May 8, 2018 |
 
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Impossibilist | 8 reseñas más. | Sep 4, 2017 |
This is really a book about poverty - and feels as relevant now as in the 1930s, when it was written, and when it caused a huge stir (less likely nowadays). Set in Salford, it focuses on a community of wrenching poverty of means and aspiration, eloquently describing the grinding despair and hopelessness that poverty brings, and the apparently unceasing cycle that the members of the community are stuck in. One week at the countryside serves for a lifetime's allocation of pleasure. Neighbours help each other out, but also prey off each other. We have the pawnbroker and the bookie, the factory owner profiting from exploitation of young 'apprentices' ; the idealistic young man and the degradation of the many. There is no escape other than prostitution or criminality of some kind, it appears, but yet most of the time most of the inhabitants of the novel are as placid and hopeless as sheep. This should be read, as it is still a resonant reminder of what poverty does to the human soul, and what growing up in poverty for children means. At the time this had a major influence on some of the more punitive views on the workless and hopeless - we need something similar today.… (más)
 
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otterley | 8 reseñas más. | Jun 4, 2015 |

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