Roy Hattersley

Growing pains all round as the old certainties loosened to give shape to our age (or at least to the 20th century world of recent memory). Hattersley covers all the key “Strange Death” trends - women’s suffrage, Ireland, the People’s Budget - as well as now forgotten crazes: the Blue Riband of the Atlantic, a prize for the fastest liner crossing, or the madcap 1910 air race from London to Manchester. The author is drawn to mavericks like Joseph Chamberlain, or Northcliffe so there’s always a tinge of admiration as he recounts their sallies and switches. Not so with the injudicious Kaiser Wilhelm or King Edward though, nor adventurers like Aurel Stein, a new name to me, meting out plunder and condescension beyond the Hindu Kush. There and elsewhere the old Boys Own icons of imperial heroism, the Scotts and Baden Powells, are nodded to, but of course, deflated somewhat. Eminent Edwardians right? The storytelling is sometimes a bit uneven, but in a sense the detail is more of interest than the broad sweep of the period, which is familiar enough.… (more)

I picked this book up when browsing at the library – I was rather intrigued to read that Roy Hattersley’s father had been a catholic priest before leaving the church to marry Roy’s mother. I’m not really a political person (although I do always use my vote) so it’s not my usual type of read but I thought I’d try it. I was pleasantly surprised.

When Roy’s parents decided to get married and move in together, they faced great opposition due to Roy’s father (also known as Roy) leaving the priesthood. They, together with Roy senior’s two brothers and Roy junior’s maternal Grandmother moved away from the gossip of Nottingham, initially to South Yorkshire and then to Sheffield. They were very poor when they first moved away and initially had no jobs, but were helped financially by Aunts of Roy’s mother, known collectively as “Worksop”, that being where they lived.

The memoir tells of life from this point up to when Roy left Sheffield City Grammar school to take economics at university. He was originally going to study English, but changed when advised that economics would be a degree more suited to life as a politician – a career that Roy had long held ambition for.

The book is full of amusing anecdotes of growing up in the 1930s and 40s and is written with warmth and in an easy reading style. Roy was a poorly child, suffering from asthma and also frequent bouts of bronchitis. On snippet to give a flavour of the writing tells of 1940 when the Germans were bombing Sheffield on a regular basis:
The book contains many references to Roy’s beloved Sheffield Wednesday and his love of cricket, and (mostly) fond memories of his school days and also of times, wistfully remembered, of playing in the streets – a time of war but also a time of great freedom. I don’t know much about Roy Hattersley’s adult life really (apart from that gleaned from his lisping, spurting Spitting Image puppet!), and I’m not really interested in politics, but I shall definitely look out for some more of his writing.… (more)