People of Providence: A Housing Estate and Some of Its Inhabitants - Softcover

Tony Parker

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1906011192 ISBN 13: 9781906011192

Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd, 2013

Synopsis

During a period of 5 years, Parker listened to the inhabitants of an apparently unremarkable housing estate in South London, and discovered a richness and diversity of life which would otherwise have gone unrecorded.

About this title

Review:

In twenty years of reviewing this is the book that has lodged deepest in my mind. -- Craig Brown, The Spectator

It is just about impossible to overpraise this book. -- Anne Smith, The New Statesman

The greatest oral historian of our day. --The Times

a string of fascinating soliloquies from people who would normally be regarded as too inarticulate to make their voices heard. --Max Davidson, The Daily Telegraph

it is a triumph. --Peter Wilmott, The Times Literary Supplement

From the Inside Flap:

Over a period of eighteen months Tony Parker interviewed the residents of an ordinary housing estate in South London. He listened to an assorted mixture of personalities - including a vagrant, two policemen, an often-convicted fence who was the mother of five children, a pro-flogging magistrate, a local doctor, and a 75-year-old widower who spent ‘an hour or two in bed each week with one or other of about twelve different ladies I meet at our church’. The inhabitants of ‘Providence’ opened their hearts, revealing all their quirks, emotions and prejudices. These interviews prove that extraordinary stories are found not only in deserts and jungles: even amid the bleak sprawl of South London, Tony Parker discovered a community that is diverse and enthralling

About this edition

• Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1906011192
• ISBN 13: 9781906011192
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 416