This book deserves a thread of its own. I'd qualify it as the most important book published in the UK over the past five years, a latter-day Road To Wigan Pier. Or, as I tweeted this morning: "a shocking, devastating portrait of chronic, heart-breaking poverty in northern England. Every UK citizen should read it and ask how one of the world's wealthiest countries can be in such a desperate state."
And, it's published by a small indie press - Bluemoose Books.
Hennigan's a librarian in Leeds, but when he's furloughed during the pandemic, he volunteers to deliver food parcels and meds to those forced into self-isolation and unable to leave the house. He knows the city well from his work, but it still doesn't prepare him for the levels of deprivation he finds every day, several times a day. And he knows that his fellow volunteers are finding exactly the same thing. Hard stares and threats from locals who mistrust anyone from any kind of authority, even when it's attempting to help them. Emaciated addicts, lonely and sick OAPs, and starving families living in busted, inhabitable shit-holes. The smell of weed and dog shit everywhere. Some people so grateful that it makes the author lachrymose, depressive and sleep-deprived. And reading what he encounters every day, it's no wonder.
We all know the UK's poverty stats, and about the still growing gap between the well off and those living on nothing, but few of us, I imagine, ever go to the no-go areas described in this book, because they're no-go for a reason, and we don't have to unless it's in our line of work. So even if we think we know about this stuff, we don't, but you will after reading this book. It's repetitive, true, but that doesn't make it any less compelling - in fact, the more you read, the more you're knocked back by the graphic descriptions of what Hennigan finds. A startling piece of work.
And, it's published by a small indie press - Bluemoose Books.
Hennigan's a librarian in Leeds, but when he's furloughed during the pandemic, he volunteers to deliver food parcels and meds to those forced into self-isolation and unable to leave the house. He knows the city well from his work, but it still doesn't prepare him for the levels of deprivation he finds every day, several times a day. And he knows that his fellow volunteers are finding exactly the same thing. Hard stares and threats from locals who mistrust anyone from any kind of authority, even when it's attempting to help them. Emaciated addicts, lonely and sick OAPs, and starving families living in busted, inhabitable shit-holes. The smell of weed and dog shit everywhere. Some people so grateful that it makes the author lachrymose, depressive and sleep-deprived. And reading what he encounters every day, it's no wonder.
We all know the UK's poverty stats, and about the still growing gap between the well off and those living on nothing, but few of us, I imagine, ever go to the no-go areas described in this book, because they're no-go for a reason, and we don't have to unless it's in our line of work. So even if we think we know about this stuff, we don't, but you will after reading this book. It's repetitive, true, but that doesn't make it any less compelling - in fact, the more you read, the more you're knocked back by the graphic descriptions of what Hennigan finds. A startling piece of work.
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