South Riding

It took me a long time to catch up with Winifred Holtby's novel (though I had heard the occasional radio or TV adaptation) but the authoritative recommendations of Baroness Williams and Sarah Waters could not be resisted forever. The 530 plus pages have been a struggle at times. For me, there are also passages which are over-written and I believe that if Holtby had lived beyond the age of 37 her mature style would have been more restrained. All in all though, it was a rewarding experience.

The characters are beautifully drawn, even the minor players who merit just a chapter or less. There are no out-and-out villains (though Holtby is hard on one particular hypocrite) or heroes without flaws. Yorkshire at a particular time is well captured, and leaving aside the local peculiarities stands for England after the Great War, with its economic and class divides. And we have Shirley Williams' word for it that the novel is still the best mirror on local government in Britain.  Leaving aside the distinction between aldermen and ordinary councillors (something which was abolished only in 1972), this dialogue between an aspiring local journalist and the respected  Alderman Beddows (based in part on the author's own mother) seems familiar even today:

"What's going to happen about the new garden village?"

"I'm not on Town Planning. Ask Alderman Snaith."

"Which site do you favour, Mrs. Beddows?"

"My people want Leame Ferry Waste on the whole; but they aren't unreasonable. They'll put up with whatever's best for the Riding. It doesn't affect us much."

"And do you think Mr Snaith knows what's best for the Riding?"

She paused. She had sat down at the square table with its green baize cover, and was sorting pens in a little tray.

"I'll tell you what Snaith knows," she said, "and you can put this in your paper. He knows that we - all of us, aldermen, councillors, chairmen of committees, we come and go; but the permanent officials stay on. The experts - Mr Smithers, Mr Wytten, Mr Prizethorp and all the rest of them - they are the people who really matter, and in the end they mostly get their own way."

"Isn't that what you call bureaucracy, Mrs Beddows?"

"I don't know what you call it. It seems to me common sense. Those men spend their lives on the job of local government, and have little to gain from any particular vote."