Priestley

JOHN BOYNTON PRIESTLEY (1894 - 1984)

At the behest of his publisher, Priestley made a tour of England in late 1933. Published as English Journey, the resultant book addresses a metropolitan audience and has been oddly influential in establishing the 'image' of the North East for over sixty years. Priestley, a headmaster's son from Bradford, was by now an established London writer and journalist. He had been stationed in Tynemouth as a young soldier in late 1915, probably in the Tynemouth Palace, a rather grand building, which he disparages as 'some kind of pier pavilion'. He had enjoyed Newcastle theatres and music halls then, but states that he had taken a dislike to the whole area.

Some twenty years later, he expresses surprise at the fine neo-classical 1830s buildings of central Newcastle, though he names none. He merely accords the city 'a certain sombre dignity'. By sharp contrast with other cities on his itinerary, Priestley is utterly ignorant of Newcastle's history - the emperor Hadrian is mentioned only in connection with York - and the city's theatres, which had so diverted him in 1915, make no appearance. Nor do there seem to be any 'warm interiors' in which to be cosily civilised (a favourite word) with local historians, as he had found elsewhere. In fact the book completely ignores the lighter side of Tyneside life and concentrates relentlessly of the human cost of recession in the basic North East industries - and above all, the intense aesthetic anguish Priestley felt at the ugliness of the contemporary urban industrial scene:

Silent rusting shipyards are not an inspiring spectacle; neither are rows of broken-down cottages and forlorn allotments. If all these things are now useless to the industrial and social body, as nail-parings and hair-combings, they might at least be decently tidied away. They are, I gather, partly the result of severe surgical operations in our post-war economy. Neither the patient nor the operating-theatre seems to have been cleaned up; and the resulting mess is not a pretty sight.

'I gather' is not a phrase Orwell would have used. The feeling is inescapable that it is the mess that really bothers Priestley. His eye is the only organ in play. His fundamental attitude to Tyneside industry is: 'But still I wondered... whether it had all been worth while'. The coal which had kept the rest of the country warm for centuries, cheap electricity from Parsons' turbines, high-speed ocean travel, the railway system, the warships and guns on which England had depended so recently, were a product of Tyneside invention and toil. We hear no gratitude or even a balancing mention. Priestley always hankered after a pre-industrial 'green' England and, astonishingly, seems to have thought Newcastle a product of the 19th century, a town built for work. Now the work had gone the place had no purpose.

Priestley came to Newcastle, where he knew almost nobody, on a wet November night, suffering from a severe cold. Though he hopes the reader will make allowance for this, it sets the tone of his whole account. Like any outside observer, he comments vaguely, though not unsympathetically, on hotels, transport, food and whatever quirks and local habits happen to strike his eye and ear. He found the natives uncouth, even compared to is native Bradford (though not so bad when you got to know them) and considered the local speech barbarous, monotonous and irritating, whether spoken by men or women. Priestley in general supported regional accents, incidentally, and retained his own. Again by contrast with other towns, he distances Tyneside unsympathetically from the reader by naming virtually no streets or other locations apart from Jesmond Dene and St James Hall, where he describes the boxing, with some appropriately repellent, bludgeoning prose. The effect is vague, monotonous and alienating. Though he describes crossing the Tyne Bridge, and was impressed by Robert Stephenson's High Level, he names neither them nor the pub (the Bridge Hotel) where he was amazed to see the People's Theatre, also unnamed, rehearsing Euripides' Trojan Women. He has left us a patronising account.

With some exceptions, like South Shields, Priestley took a very scathing view of 1930s Tyneside (particularly Gateshead) as a place for human beings to live. His impressions are wholly superficial, however, and there is none of the analysis of everyday economics that we find in Orwell's northern excursion. He speaks knowledgably about the Jewish communities in York and Lincoln, but is astonished to see a synagogue in Sunderland.

Priestley's humanity and pity are declaimed (often with powerful rhetoric) rather than conveyed, and are so overdone in the Durham coalfield (the only mining area he visited on his journey) that he actually makes things appear worse than they were. Shotton sounds like something out of Dante's Inferno. This is to defeat his humane object. His words deter rather than encourage assistance. Once again, informed by a German lady that Durham village children were more musical than their German counterparts, he simply cannot believe his ears. He actually recommends seaside holidays for Easington children, who could walk to the sea, and bus to resorts. Finally, Priestley must be the only writer to mention Durham castle (twice) but not the Cathedral - and certainly the only one ever to advise tourists not to go to the city!

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
JOHN BOYNTON PRIESTLEY (1894 - 1984) At the behest of his publisher, Priestley made a tour of England in late 1933. Published as English Journey, the resultant book addresses a metropolitan audience and has been oddly influential in establishing the 'image' of the North East for over sixty years. Priestley, a headmaster's son from Bradford, was by now an established London writer and journalist. He had been stationed in Tynemouth as a young soldier in late 1915, probably in the Tynemouth Palace, a rather grand building, which he disparages as 'some kind of pier pavilion'. He had enjoyed Newcastle theatres and music halls then, but states that he had taken a dislike to the whole area. Some twenty years later, he expresses surprise at the fine neo-classical 1830s buildings of central Newcastle, though he names none. He merely accords the city 'a certain sombre dignity'. By sharp contrast with other cities on his itinerary, Priestley is utterly ignorant of Newcastle's history - the emperor Hadrian is mentioned only in connection with York - and the city's theatres, which had so diverted him in 1915, make no appearance. Nor do there seem to be any 'warm interiors' in which to be cosily civilised (a favourite word) with local historians, as he had found elsewhere. In fact the book completely ignores the lighter side of Tyneside life and concentrates relentlessly of the human cost of recession in the basic North East industries - and above all, the intense aesthetic anguish Priestley felt at the ugliness of the contemporary urban industrial scene: Silent rusting shipyards are not an inspiring spectacle; neither are rows of broken-down cottages and forlorn allotments. If all these things are now useless to the industrial and social body, as nail-parings and hair-combings, they might at least be decently tidied away. They are, I gather, partly the result of severe surgical operations in our post-war economy. Neither the patient nor the operating-theatre seems to have been cleaned up; and the resulting mess is not a pretty sight. 'I gather' is not a phrase Orwell would have used. The feeling is inescapable that it is the mess that really bothers Priestley. His eye is the only organ in play. His fundamental attitude to Tyneside industry is: 'But still I wondered... whether it had all been worth while'. The coal which had kept the rest of the country warm for centuries, cheap electricity from Parsons' turbines, high-speed ocean travel, the railway system, the warships and guns on which England had depended so recently, were a product of Tyneside invention and toil. We hear no gratitude or even a balancing mention. Priestley always hankered after a pre-industrial 'green' England and, astonishingly, seems to have thought Newcastle a product of the 19th century, a town built for work. Now the work had gone the place had no purpose. Priestley came to Newcastle, where he knew almost nobody, on a wet November night, suffering from a severe cold. Though he hopes the reader will make allowance for this, it sets the tone of his whole account. Like any outside observer, he comments vaguely, though not unsympathetically, on hotels, transport, food and whatever quirks and local habits happen to strike his eye and ear. He found the natives uncouth, even compared to is native Bradford (though not so bad when you got to know them) and considered the local speech barbarous, monotonous and irritating, whether spoken by men or women. Priestley in general supported regional accents, incidentally, and retained his own. Again by contrast with other towns, he distances Tyneside unsympathetically from the reader by naming virtually no streets or other locations apart from Jesmond Dene and St James Hall, where he describes the boxing, with some appropriately repellent, bludgeoning prose. The effect is vague, monotonous and alienating. Though he describes crossing the Tyne Bridge, and was impressed by Robert Stephenson's High Level, he names neither them nor the pub (the Bridge Hotel) where he was amazed to see the People's Theatre, also unnamed, rehearsing Euripides' Trojan Women. He has left us a patronising account. With some exceptions, like South Shields, Priestley took a very scathing view of 1930s Tyneside (particularly Gateshead) as a place for human beings to live. His impressions are wholly superficial, however, and there is none of the analysis of everyday economics that we find in Orwell's northern excursion. He speaks knowledgably about the Jewish communities in York and Lincoln, but is astonished to see a synagogue in Sunderland. Priestley's humanity and pity are declaimed (often with powerful rhetoric) rather than conveyed, and are so overdone in the Durham coalfield (the only mining area he visited on his journey) that he actually makes things appear worse than they were. Shotton sounds like something out of Dante's Inferno. This is to defeat his humane object. His words deter rather than encourage assistance. Once again, informed by a German lady that Durham village children were more musical than their German counterparts, he simply cannot believe his ears. He actually recommends seaside holidays for Easington children, who could walk to the sea, and bus to resorts. Finally, Priestley must be the only writer to mention Durham castle (twice) but not the Cathedral - and certainly the only one ever to advise tourists not to go to the city!
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