Broady The Night-Soil Men

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-78463-319-6
Verlag: Salt
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 0, 480 Seiten

Reihe: Salt Modern Fiction

Broady's major work of fiction, nearly a decade in the writing, explores the origins and development of the Independent Labour Party - the working-class political movement founded in Bradford in 1893. Detailing the exploits, fortunes, and relationships of three central characters: passionate Fred Jowett, ruthless Philip Snowden (later, the Labour Party's first chancellor), and the licentious and unforgettable Victor Grayson. Spanning four decades, the novel covers the socialist foment and activism of fin-de-siècle Britain, the impact of the First World War and the changing landscape of the interwar years, as social change points forward to a new politics and the reinvention of Britain, despite fierce resistance from the establishment and its allies. And all punctuated with sex, comrades, hustings, art, dialect and copious points of order. With cameos of every leading socialist of the age, this sweeping generational tale is thrilling, revolutionary, ribald and laugh-out-loud funny.

Bill Broady lives and works in Yorkshire. His first novel, Swimmer (2000), tells the story of a girl coached to become a successful international athlete. His second novel, Eternity is Temporary (2006) is set during the 1976 heatwave. In This Block There Lives A Slag (2001) is a collection of short stories set around a residential block in Yorkshire. It won a Macmillan Silver Pen Award in 2002.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Broady, Bill

Leseproben

CHAPTER TWO IN THE BRAIN ROOM (1897)
Jowett was standing outside The Jollity Theatre, watching the audience arrive. It was a flimsy but ornate building deep in the valley’s cleft where copper-hooped barrels and filthy wool had dammed up the waters of Bradford Beck. When things began to rot they were said locally to be stinking of jollity. On Sundays it was no longer a mere music-hall but home to the Labour Church Debating Society. The singers, comedians and dancing girls were still sleeping off their hangovers. There would be no further jollification until first house tomorrow. He leaned back against the blackened wall. It felt to be vibrating, as if it had somehow stored up the hopes and dreams of thousands of people. These stones were even more alive than those of the Cathedral, as if laughter might be a higher form of prayer. The statues in the parks were the best, though: you got a powerful jolt when you touched the rounded kneecaps of those two bare-shouldered nymphs who flanked a scowling Sir Robert Peel. In contrast, the crumbly bricks of Fred’s own house were lifeless and so were all the other ones in his street. Folk came streaming down the terraces: there would be a good turnout today. Fred’s attention was caught by one particular group, aligned like rugby forwards, who were pushing an unusual conveyance, part-handcart, part-perambulator. On it reclined what appeared to be the corpse of an emaciated man. As they passed, however, the eyes flickered open, bloodshot but piercingly blue. One bony hand clutched a small black notebook to its chest, whilst the fingers of the other scraped the pavement. The old Chartists used to place a cripple at the head of their demonstrations: Fred had imagined that this was a placatory gesture but now it struck him that it had been a reproach, an accusation or even a declaration of aggressive intent. The attendants were red-faced and sweating, despite the apparent lightness of their load, as if they had drawn it over the tops from Keighley. This ominous figure could only be one man. Advance reports of new arrivals in the movement were usually exaggerated – the dwarf and the giant would be separated by a few inches, Adonis and Quasimodo could pass for brothers – but in this case they had not told the half of it. Philip Snowden, The Lazarus of Cowling: a red-hot jingo who had fallen and hit his head and then woken up, a week later, as a fire-eating radical. He was said to live on roots and berries in a cave up on the moors. He would answer any question on history or economics and could do amazing sums in his head. He wrote a column in The Craven Pioneer under the by-line ‘Robin Redbreast’, in which he dismissed everyone not in the ILP as ‘parasitical murderers’. Above all, he was a spell-binding orator, although Fred could not imagine anything more than groans issuing from those thin grey lips. Once, a group of parasitical murderers had gone to give him the thrashing he deserved, only to retreat in disorder, shaking in every limb. They said that he had given them the Evil Eye, although surely nothing could be more intimidating than what was presumably his habitual expression. At least Jim Sharp would not have been able to make his customary observation that each new hope of the Labour movement looked and sounded exactly like the previous one. Jim had left last Spring, without a word. A comrade working at Liverpool Docks had seen him – “I’d have known them legs anywhere” – negotiating the gangplank of the Ivernia, bound for New York. Now Fred dreamed of his friend drowning – the face distorted, with streams of bubbles issuing from the mouth – even though his ship had safely arrived. So many of their best men had already been lost to drink or to the colonies or, like Tom Maguire, had died. Fred’s head would still turn, only to find that Jim was no longer at his side. There were unfamiliar faces in the Jollity queue: older people, unusually well-dressed, and more clergymen – not just the Unitarians but a good half of the Bradford diocese. Fred did recognize a group of small millowners from Lancashire with their managers, overlookers and wives: the Sugdens would never have let them in. There was a distinct sense of anticipation: whenever the line surged forward he was almost engulfed by two well-upholstered ladies. “We’ve come for Mr Snowden,” the smaller informed him. “We saw him at Haworth last week and at Silsden and Bingley before that.” “And he’s different every time,” the other winked and dug him in the ribs, “Even though he always says the same things.” Inside the hall the smell was more pronounced: the crimson carpet was suspiciously damp and even the dust had begun to mould. Although Fred could have perched up on the platform with the other luminaries he preferred, if he was not speaking himself, to occupy a centre aisle seat halfway back. Horner had seen him, though, and jumped down to shake his hand. The firmness of the clasp indicated that the man was almost sober. “You’ll have to look to yourself, Jowett,” Horner was now trying to crush his fingers, “Our lad’s after your crown.” “I haven’t got a crown.” Fred easily broke his grip. Why did people always think that there was some competition going on? Why ever should a comrade’s success be a source of chagrin for him? Everyone in the stalls was talking at once, while ribald laughter and whistling issued from the gods. Perhaps the usual Variety crowd had turned up by mistake? If they didn’t get their two dozen choruses of ‘Down At The Old Bull And Bush’ there was no telling what they might do. Directly across the aisle Fred recognized Johnny Coe, a retired weaver from Wibsey. He was always in Laycock’s Temperance Hotel, his small tortoise-like head swaying as the political arguments raged back and forth. He never said more than ‘aye’ or ‘nay’ or ‘’appen’ and his graveyard expression did not vary. Now, however, he was all smiles, chatting to his neighbour and actually puffing away at the clay pipe that usually protruded redundantly from his top pocket. Then Metcalfe, the Chairman, massively cleared his throat and began to lever himself in stages to his feet: a complete silence fell. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” – his unusual animation showed that he too had been possessed by the music-hall spirit – “Bonnie Scotland has its Ben Nevis, wild Cumberland has its Scafell Pike and all Wales lies under the benign shadow of Mount Snowdon … but we have here, in the heart of the West Riding, our very own mighty and majestic eminence, that fourth peak, the greatest of them all, which – unlike its unfortunate Welsh namesake – is day by day growing in stature and reputation. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you … Brother Philip Snowden!” The applause surged, then slackened: redoubled, then died away. There was still no sign of the speaker but now the crowd could hear a hollow double thud, followed by a loud metallic scraping. As Fred turned, Snowden came past. The attendants had disappeared and he was now supporting himself on two walking sticks: although weirdly knotted and twisted, of different thickness and length, these somehow contrived to keep him on an even keel. He cast them forward to spear the carpet and then dragged his body after them. He wore enormous boots heeled and soled with steel plates: Fred was surprised that they did not leave a double furrow in their wake. On the next row the two friendly ladies had produced a stopwatch and were timing their hero’s progress. Only now did it register that the small black notebook was clamped between Snowden’s teeth. Under a domed forehead, the face was tiny, with pinched, delicate features: seen from behind, the head was almost square. Although the lower half of the body had wasted away, the shoulders were wide and powerful. The overall impression was not of weakness but of a colossal strength somehow out of its element, as if a kraken or leviathan had been plucked from its oceanic trench and deposited in a Bradford music hall. His every step was a triumph over the laws of gravity and motion: Fred could feel the audience silently willing him on. Snowden managed the steps up to the stage surprisingly well, with a sort of scissoring action, the sticks seemingly rowing through the air. Then, with a slow swing of the shoulders, he turned. The sticks rattled to the floor as the body toppled forward until those bony hands fastened like raptor’s talons on the top of the lectern. The air could be heard rasping and whistling in the dry windpipe: it seemed that Snowden was the only one in the place that was breathing. The bowed head shook itself in a spray of perspiration then the sharp chin rose. There was a collective gasp: those eyes! They seemed to change colour from grey to green with a distinct flash of scarlet on the way. But outside, surely, they had been blue? “So it is true that people are rising up from under the yoke of oppression.” Snowden spoke in a low voice, as if resuming an interrupted conversation. “And it is also true that even our opponents no longer seriously attempt to justify that yoke.” Although Fred had been...