Real Leeds: The Poet, The Novelist, The Historian

There is something about Leeds. Or, at least, about Leeds writers. This thought occurred to me whilst watching the West Yorkshire Playhouse revival of Billy Liar. Actually, it occurred during the interval, whilst reading the programme notes about the author, Keith Waterhouse. The article began: “No-one could have imagined that a scruffy, begraggled youngster wearing hand-me-down clothing and living in the ‘wrong’ side of Leeds in a back-to-back house in the 1930s would emerge one day as a revered writer.”

And I thought: “Why not?”

It is somehow expected that writers, musicians, actors and artists that live in the wrong side of, say, Liverpool or Manchester will one day emerge as national figures. It is almost compulsory. From the Beatles and ‘Coronation Street’ in the 1960s to the Manc bands who reinvented indie music, the north has made a huge impact on contemporary culture. But whereas scruffy, bedraggled lads and lasses from our rival northern cities are always viewed as part of a movement – the Merseybeat poets, the Madchester sound etc – no-one ever talks about a Leeds movement.

As I document in my book Promised Land, many of the angry young men of the 60s came from Leeds and its surrounds. In the 1990s, a new generation of iconoclasts emerged, including the likes of Caryl Phillips, Kay Mellor and David Peace. And in 2010, 50 years after Billy Liar exploded on to the West End stage, hardly a month has gone by without another Loiner launching a new publication. And yet the blinkered metropolitan elites down south refuse to acknowledge this new wave of West Riding writers.

In November, I will share a platform with three of them at an event entitled Real Leeds: The Poet, The Novelist, The Historian. It is chaired by Kester Aspden, whose shocking account of the hounding of rough sleeper David Oluwale exposed one of the most notorious racist crimes in British history. The poet is Ian Duhig, whose wonderfully droll new collection of work paints a far truer picture of Britain’s cultural diversity than most documentary accounts have given us. The novelist is Wes Brown, whose astonishing first novel, Shark, combines the grittiness of a David Storey with the existential reflections of a Don DeLillo.

And I am the historian, having taught the subject many moons ago and, in my own book, tried to tell the story of my beloved – and at times bedevilled – city from three different, but intertwining, perspectives: the football team, the Jewish community and the writers who, I believe, have never been credit for their influence on post-war British life.

Real Leeds is on Thursday, 4th November, 7pm at Waterstones, Leeds. It marks the publication of three new books of Leeds interest: Wes Brown’s Shark, Anthony Clavane’s Promised Land and Ian Duhig’s Pandorama. It is chaired by The Hounding of David Oluwale author Kester Aspden. Tickets are free but must be booked through Waterstones in advance on 0113 244 4588

Source: The Leeds Guide