October 1940. Twenty-three-year-old Bobby Bancroft is working as a typist for a city newspaper, but she longs to be breaking the news herself. When she successfully applies for a junior reporter role at The Tyke, a magazine serving the Yorkshire Dales, she’s thrilled to be entering the world of journalism – even if she only […]
The last battle on British soil?
Jonathan Trigell, author of Under Country, recalls the ‘Battle of Orgreave’ in Yorkshire during the miners’ strike of 1984. Though it’s described as a riot, he argues, was it, in fact, the last battle fought on British soil to this day? 18 June, 1984, might already appear to be quite recent as a suitable subject […]
From the Mill to Monte Carlo by Anne Fletcher
Among the men ‘who broke the bank at Monte Carlo’, Joseph Hobson Jagger is unique. He is the only one known to have devised an infallible and completely legal system to defeat the odds at roulette and win a fortune. But he was not what might be expected. He wasn’t a gentleman or an aristocrat, […]
To Walk Invisible: BBC’s Brontë Biopic
Screenwriter Sally Wainwright is best known for hard-hitting drama, Happy Valley and ratings hit, Last Tango in Halifax. Kicking off her career with a stint on Emmerdale, she’s found her niche writing, and latterly directing, TV drama set in the North of England. Her work is characterised by down-to-earth storytelling with a big dash of […]
My Place In History
Fiction is often described as ‘character in action.’ And characters have to be active somewhere you can see, smell, hear and touch, unless you’re Samuel Beckett who can bury Winnie up to her waist and then neck in sand and yet create an active character. For the rest of us, a strong sense of place […]