Two Bentley Lads - Softcover

Wright, Albert And Clifford

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798401462497

Publisher: Independently published, 2022

Synopsis

Mass migration, war, pandemic — and in a northern mining town the start of family life for Percy and Elsie Wright. We move on to a vivid picture of working class life in the 1920s and 1930s, as told by two of Percy and Elsie's children.

This is the story of the early lives of two of the nine children of a coalminer and his wife. Albert and Clifford Wright were pit village children in the years of the Great Depression, the Bentley Colliery Disaster, and the General Strike.

The family lived in poverty in Bentley, a northern mining village. The simple business of just muddling through life in those hard times is here, together with the warmth and love of a large family. There was hardship and tragedy, but there was also camping, fishing, and boyhood pranks. Meanwhile, war loomed, and was to become a major part of our story.

The brothers grew up, and became very different men with very different writing styles. Yet together their accounts tell us so much about the lives of ordinary people of the time.

Clifford – the excitable, high-powered optimist, a can-do man if ever there was one. Clifford’s contributions include an intelligent child’s attempts to understand the peculiarities and seeming irrationalities of life, as organised by the grown-ups.

Albert – solid, feet on the ground, “if something can go wrong it most likely will.” A very pragmatic man with remarkable practical skills, patience, and common sense. Albert’s contribution to this book goes on to include an account of his time as soldier in World War II, when he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

For anyone interested in the real lives of the British urban poor in the inter-war years and beyond, this book is a must.

Edition details

• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798401462497
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 250
• Editor: Wright William