Class of '37 cover art

Class of '37

‘A wonderful rear-view glimpse of [a] vanishing world’ – Simon Garfield. Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize

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Class of '37

By: Hester Barron, Claire Langhamer
Narrated by: Bea Holland
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'A moving microhistory of working-class girlhood' BBC History Magazine


It is 1937 in a northern mill-town and a class of twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls are writing about their lives, their world, and the things that matter to them. They tell of cobbled streets and crowded homes; the Coronation festivities and holidays to Blackpool; laughter and fun alongside poverty and hardship. They are destined for the cotton mill but they dream of being film stars.

Class of '37 uses the writing of these young girls, as collected by the research organisation Mass Observation, to rediscover this lost world, transporting readers back in time to a smoky industrial town in an era before the introduction of a Welfare State, where once again the clouds of war were beginning to gather. Woven within this rich, authentic history are the twists and turns of the girls' lives from childhood to beyond, from their happiest times to the most heart-breaking of their sorrows.

A compelling social history, this intimate reconstruction of working-class life in 1930s Britain is a haunting and emotional account of a bygone age. Europe Great Britain Social Sciences
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A truly wonderful glimpse into a lost world, unique in its description of working class life in North West England in the period running up World War Two. Despite the smug snobbery of some of the Mass Observation observers the dignity, intelligence and wit of the girls shines out. But, and it is a big absence, where is the politics? Not necessarily, of course, of the girls , but of the town, who was the MP,?I assume he was Labour. Is this correct? What about voting, did people vote with enthusiasm? What about the local council/councillors What did their constitutuents think of them? To describe working class life so vividly without talking about the political context is bizarre and inexplicable. and the reason for my 3 stars.

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