Stuart Maconie after JB Priestley
Another book to add to my To Read list
Last weekend I went to see Stuart Maconie at the Ilkley Literature Festival, talking about his new book The Full English. I had already vaguely noted that he’d written a new one and it sounded like it might be my sort of thing, but it was only at the talk itself that I realised it was actually a recreation of English Journey by JB Priestley, 90 years on.
I have a soft spot for JB Priestley because he’s from Bradford. Having read An Inspector Calls at school 30 years ago, I listened to a couple of BBC radio productions of some of his other plays and I’ve seen both An Inspector Calls and When We Are Married a couple of times at the theatre. I’ve still never read his breakout hit novel The Good Companions, but I have read the later novel Angel Pavement which I enjoyed.
It’s only relatively recently that I realised he wrote non-fiction as well (50 years ago he was one of the most well-known writers and broadcasters in the country, and no doubt everyone would have been astonished at my ignorance), and I read English Journey a dozen years ago. It’s the sort of book that Stuart Maconie has written a couple of, in fact I likened his Long Road From Jarrow to it five years ago.
Long Road From Jarrow by Stuart Maconie
I went to see Stuart Maconie talk about this book at last year's Ilkley Literature Festival, an event which was entertaining and informative, and far too short. I finally got the book out of the library in January and it's one of those that halfway through, I wished I'd bought it instead.
Priestley went round the country one year reporting in a readable style on the state of England as it went through a rough patch. Maconie has visited the same places - over a slightly longer timescale due to the pandemic - and tried to do the same sort of thing to get as similar experience as possible. So for instance if Priestley mentioned he went for a steak in this town or a cocktail in that one, Stuart Maconie did that too. The major difference is that The Full English tour was conducted on public transport in the main, whereas Priestley had a chauffeur-driven car. And of course, about ninety years have gone by.
English Journey was about people more than places, trying to get to know what life was like in the mainly urban locations of Priestley’s tour. If you like Stuart Maconie’s writing style then it sounds like just the sort of set-up to give him a good basis for conversation and observation. The added bonus if you’re familiar with English Journey is that there’s the direct contrast of then and now. If you’re not familiar with it, listen to Stuart Maconie’s excellent BBC radio programme about Priestley, then read English Journey. But do be prepared for some blunt comments about the places he didn’t much care for.