South Riding

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In many ways, that illustrates Holtby’s strength in storytelling and characterisation, touching on different members of the community as the narrative unfolds. In the novel, Sarah before coming to South Riding had three major romantic relationships; one when she was very young in the war with the inevitable tragic ending when he died, one when she was a teacher in South Africa which ended for political reasons (she also left South Africa because of apartheid, and remember, this novel was finished in 1935), and one with a Labour mp who wanted her to give up her job and marry him and was shocked when she said she'd rather be his mistress instead. There is an unusually high rate of lunacy, illness, and general misfortune in this particular corner of England.

Its length and the varied and large array of characters reminded me of Victorian novelists like Eliot and Dickens. for whatever reason I thought it was clever at the time, when I was growing to really like Sarah Burton, the headmistress of the school for girls in South Riding: I was born to be a spinster, and by God, I’m going to spin. The latter was surely inspired by Holtby’s mother, Alice, who held the same post in her real-life area of Yorkshire. The series won both the BAFTA and the Broadcasting Press Guild awards for Best Drama Series in 1975.It is partly based on Holtby’s mothers experience as an alderman and on her experience of local government (her mother opposed her writing the novel). Without emotion, without haste, without even, so far as Lovell could discern, any noticeable interest, the South Riding County Council ploughed through its agenda. Like you, I loved the characterisation – individuals you can believe and invest in, drawn in such a way to elicit the reader’s sympathies in spite of their individual flaws and failings. The character she informs is Joe, the sole socialist on the South Riding council; in the novel, Sarah meets him through a spirited political debate. Beddows: as the South Riding's first female alderman, she's expected to be colorful and allows people to believe outlandish stories about her, but in reality she's more conventional than that, a worldly-wise grandmother who finds happiness through community involvement--and through the attention of Robert Carne, whom she views as a combination of attractive male friend and spiritual son-in-law.

For me that's a plus; literature should deal with big ideas, and the structure of society and purpose of government are certainly that. It is worth reading this novel to better understand the interwar years in England and the literature of the time. To become a subscriber to Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader’s Quarterly Magazine, please visit our subscriptions page. My copy of South RIding is mouldering on the shelf (like so many others) but you’ve definitely inspired me to bump it up the queue.This isn't a book about politicking, but it is a story involving local government during a time of economic depression, and Holtby's progressive beliefs do shine through in the way the characters think about their world and the effects of their decisions. South Riding’s publication was completed with Vera Brittain’s intervention (her dear lifelong friend), overriding the concerns of Alice Holtby, Winifred’s mother.