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| Landscape of neglect Fact and fiction blur as Heartland novelist Anthony Cartwright take Chris Arnot on a tour through estates of despairThere is a passage in Anthony Cartwright's novel, Heartland, currently being serialised on Radio 4, in which veteran Labour councillor Jim Bayliss ponders why his seat in Cinderheath is under threat from the British National party in local elections in 2002. "How could there be a Labour Party when there was no labour left for it to represent?" he muses. "It had become something else. There were jobs now, of course. The big losses had come some 20-odd years ago, but it was hardly the same β jobs for cleaners and security men, shop work and mobile phone salesβ¦ Even the call-centre jobs were going to Bangalore. This was the town's position in the new world order."The town is Dudley, in the west Midlands. Cinderheath is a fictional ward, but Dudley is real enough. It even has its own castle. Cartwright and I can see it impressively cresting the horizon as we trudge the mile or so from Dudley Port station towards the town centre. Along with the adjoining zoo, the castle is what makes Dudley distinctive among the Black Country towns that were collectively known as the "workshop of the world" when Queen Victoria pulled down the blinds on one of the uglier parts of her empire as the royal train passed through. On a sunny, soot-free autumnal day in 2009, we can see the flag of St George fluttering from the castle ramparts.There were many more such flags around Dudley in the early summer of 2002 β partly because England were playing Argentina in a crucial qualifying group match at the World Cup finals in Japan, and partly for more sinister reasons. "I wanted to capture the fevered intensity of that time," Cartwright explains. "It was only a few months after 9/11. Three men from Tipton, just down the road, were being held in Guantanamo and someone from the media had come up with the not very helpful term 'the Tipton Taliban'. There was a feeling around of 'What's going to happen next?' Football seemed to work well as a way of exploring social issues. Supporting England can be massively positive. For people whose identity is predominantly parochial, it can give them something to cohere around. But it can also be exploited by those with another agenda."Much of the book switches between Cinderheath FC clubhouse β where players, friends and relatives are gathered to watch Beckham's boys beat the "Argies" β and a local match between an all-white Cinderheath side and an all-Muslim team, while BNP thugs prowl the touchline.Gaining groundHeartland was published by Tindal Street Press in Birmingham earlier this year, shortly before the London literati began debating why so few of the books shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize were grappling with contemporary issues. A few months on, Cartwright suddenly finds himself in demand to help explain why the political far right is gaining ground β perhaps because Radio 4 happened to make this, his second novel, its Book at Bedtime shortly after BNP leader Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time."Fiction allows you to explore ideas and motivation in a bit more depth than a current affairs programme can hope to do," Cartwright suggests. And a novelist with his background is better placed than most to do that, because of where he comes from and where he went to. Born in Dudley 35 years ago, he graduated from the University of East Anglia and went on to teach in the East End of London after working in factories, pubs, a meat-packing plant, London Underground and Spitalfields market."Even in London, there are hidden corners that have more in common with areas like this than a great cosmopolitan city," he says, gesturing around us at the soulless retail and business parks of post-industrial Dudley. "I taught at the Royal Docks Community School in Newham until 2004, and there were predominantly white estates full of people who felt left behind by the ongoing changes in Docklands."He now lives in Nottingham and teaches in Sutton in Ashfield, a former mining town where he encounters children from similarly disillusioned families. "Extremism flourishes," he maintains, "when people have a perception that they've been abandoned and bypassed by the pace of change. There's always a temptation to look around for simple answers to complex questions."Former dockers, miners and foundry workers have one thing in common: at different times in comparatively recent industrial history, they lost not only their incomes but also the self-respect, identity and camaraderie that went with the job.Our walk from the station to the centre of Dudley takes us along a clogged dual carriageway that could be anywhere in England. At one point, we come across the all-too-typical mixture of multiplex cinema, 24-hour supermarket, DIY superstore and fried-chicken chains. "That's built on what used to be the county ground, home of Dudley cricket club, where Worcestershire came to play once a season," Cartwright points out. "Twenty-five years ago, the groundsman took off the covers to find a dirty great hole caused by the limestone workings underneath. They promptly closed it down, along with Dudley Town FC's ground next door."At a stroke went two great sources of local pride and identity. This was the cricket pitch where Basil D'Oliveira hit a century for Worcestershire in the 1960s and Wally Hammond a double century for Gloucestershire in the 1930s. Either man could have glanced up at the castle and idly wondered whether they were on the picturesque Arundel cricket ground in West Sussex. A glance the other way, however, would have encompassed thriving foundries and factories.There had already been wholesale closures by the time of the cricket ground's all too symbolic collapse. "Even as a boy, I was aware of this landscape of decay as the physical fabric of the town was boarded up, and that fed into the psychology of the place," Cartwright recollects. "And at times of economic collapse, people always look around for someone to blame." In this case, people from the Indian subcontinent, who had come to keep the factories and foundries going in the boom times, says the author. "My inclination is to look a long way from here towards the Thatcher government when it comes to looking for culprits," he says.We walk into a central shopping area that has never recovered from the decision in the 1980s to allow developers to build the vast Merry Hill shopping centre a mile or two down the road. Like Meadowhall in Sheffield and the Metrocentre in Gateshead, it was symbolic of the switch from manufacturing to retail as a provider of (lower-paid) employment. Plans have just been announced to close Beattie's, the only department store in the centre of Dudley. We sit in the panoramic window of its cafe and look out across the dual carriageway that slices through the heart of the town, conveying shoppers towards Merry Hill.Domes and minaretsAcross the road, we can see the waste ground where the Dudley Muslim Association has outline planning permission to build what its many opponents are calling a "super-mosque". Some 55,000 signatures have been gathered against it on a petition started by Malcolm Davis, a councillor representing the UK Independence party. "It will destroy the ambience of a historic market town with a castle," he claims, "and make people feel intimidated." Beyond the cafe window are plenty of buildings out of keeping with a historic market town. But then, they don't have domes and minarets.The argument, involving the government inspectorate and appeals to the high court, has been going on so long that Cartwright felt able to include it in a book set in 2002. "Any discussion of the practicalities β such as the fact that the current central mosque is too small β is being drowned out by the noise against Islam," he says. "While I was writing the book, there was similarly orchestrated opposition to a mosque in West Ham [in east London]."Cartwright uses the literary device of having the Dudley mosque being planned for the site of an old steelworks. In reality, it was Merry Hill that was built partly on the site of the old Round Oak works, which closed in 1982. "They employed 5,000 people and fed the local economy like a generator, whereas Merry Hill has been a sponge, sucking the life out of Dudley," says Cartwright's father, Keith. A recently retired engineer, he has joined us for a lunchtime pint in a rare survivor in these parts β a traditional Black Country pub. By now, we're in neighbouring Netherton, close to the foundry that made the anchor chain for the Titanic. That's long closed too.Cartwright senior goes on: "This area has gone through massive socio-economic changes in the past 30 years and there's understandable discontent. That's what the far right pick up on." And that's why the fictional Jim Bayliss finished his political career a disillusioned man. As it says in Heartland: "Jim became a councillor in 1979, against the prevailing mood. He thought he was doing his bit for Cinderheath, Dudley, England, the Labour movement, the working class."But the ground was shifting under the working class and sinking, like an old cricket pitch falling into the limestone workings that once fed the iron and steel-making process in the workshop of the world.Heartland, published by Tindal Street Press (Β£9.99), is Radio 4's Book at Bedtime until Friday. To order a copy for Β£9.99 with free UK p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/ bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.CommunitiesPovertyChris Arnotguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
A bloody good show | Nigel Sheinwald From Christopher Lee to Robert Pattinson, one of Britain's most popular cultural exports to America has been vampiresIt seems an immutable law of Hollywood that the finest baddies in American film are always played by Brits. I'm not sure exactly why β there is nothing inherently menacing, I think, about an English accent. But whatever the reason, I have spotted a cinematic trend here that builds on this fine tradition: British vampires.This week sees the release of New Moon, the highly anticipated second instalment of the Vampire saga Twilight. This spectacular teen drama - which focuses on the forbidden love of the vampire Edward Cullen for his sweetheart Bella - has attracted, in some circles, as much attention as the current US healthcare debate (although being undead would still presumably be classed as a pre-existing condition?).Cullen is played by the talented British actor Robert Pattinson, whose disturbing stare now dominates billboards advertising the new film in the US. As a Prince of Darkness flying the flag for Britain, Pattison is not alone. His British colleague Stephen Moyer has proved a tremendous hit as the tormented blood-sucker Bill Compton in HBO's series True Blood, whilst Kate Beckinsale, as Selene in the Underworld franchise, shows British women are equally adept at vampyric horror.All three build on an established pedigree of undead Brits terrorising their transatlantic victims. From Christopher Lee to Gary Oldman, the Transylvanian count has often enjoyed an English incarnation. Coincidence? Or something, shall we say, more "cryptic"? Could it be the British climate that creates the pale and pasty complexion necessary to portray authentically Bram Stoker's monster? Or is it our "deadpan" humour, putting the grave into graveyard, that makes us Brits especially suited to vampire kitsch?Whatever the reason, I am very happy β as British Ambassador β to acknowledge this latest example of UK artistic impact in the US. The success of British actors in the US, and the popularity of British arts and television here more generally, speak to the strength of the cultural ties that bind our two countries. Our cultural and media exports are also a lucrative industry for the UK economy, which the British Embassy will continue to support in whatever way we can.So vampires aside, there is nothing undead about the vibrancy of the UK's cultural and media life. And am I confident of its continued transatlantic success? The "stakes" may be high, but you may most definitely "Count" on it!Sir Nigel Sheinwald is British Ambassador to the US.Robert PattinsonHorrorUS televisionChristopher LeeTrue BloodStephenie MeyerHBOUnited StatesNigel Sheinwaldguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Hardcover Nonfiction Top 5 at a Glance1. GOING ROGUE, by Sarah Palin2. HAVE A LITTLE FAITH, by Mitch Albom3. OPEN, by Andre Agassi4. SUPERFREAKONOMICS, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner5. ARGUING WITH IDIOTS, written and edited by Glenn Beck, Kevin Balfe and others feeds.nytimes.com |
Potter's decade He was the first new global superhero of the 21st century - a character with universal appealBoth statistically and artistically, it's unlikely, in any given decade, that a new British fictional character will emerge to match the name-recognition, sales and cinematic bankability of Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. But Harry Potter became the first new global superhero of the 21st century, with JK Rowling following JM Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming as a writer who has created a character with universal appeal.I should point out that this authorial quartet share an intriguing biographical detail: Barrie and Conan Doyle were born in Scotland, Fleming was Anglo-Scottish and Rowling wrote most of the Potter books in Edinburgh. So perhaps the key to an immortal protagonist is a Caledonian connection.But there must be other reasons that Harry Potter was able to rewrite so many rules of publishing: leading the New York Times to introduce a separate children's bestseller list and bookshops to open at midnight on publication day, selling 11m copies of the final volume within 24 hours in Britain and the US.As is often the case with cultural phenomena, it seems to have helped that Potter defied the conventional wisdom of the time. A focus group would surely have concluded β as the eight publishers who turned down the original manuscript presumably did β that there was no modern market for stories about a bespectacled wimp at a boarding school. But within a decade he was a billion-dollar brand.In retrospect, it can be seen that Rowling had understood that in a school-age literary culture dominated by social realism there remained a place for fantasy. Another factor is that the details of Potter and Hogwarts Academy were so meticulously imagined. From the first book, the reader felt that, like a veteran headteacher, Rowling knew every inch of the geography of the school and the character of every pupil.And, while drawing on many literary traditions (The Famous Five, Mallory Towers, Lord of the Rings), the books also admitted contemporary perspectives. Hermione Granger, for example, was always more feminist and pro-active in the books than the Hollywood versions allowed her to be. And although rapidly claimed by the conservative press as a purveyor of good old-fashioned family entertainment, Rowling soon used her public profile to campaign for the rights of single mothers, her own status when she began writing.Given that he was 11 at the opening of the first book, The Philosopher's Stone, in 1997, Harry Potter was born β at least by the measurements of muggle time β in 1986. But although Rowling's characters age in real time β completing seven forms at Hogwarts across the seven books β publication of the sequence took a decade and so the chronology is confused and the strongest image imprinted in the minds of most viewers and readers is probably the pre-pubescent Harry, his owl and owlish glasses almost too big for him, as seen on the early dust-jackets and in Daniel Radcliffe's first movie performances.Even so β given that James Bond was frozen somewhere in his 40s, Sherlock Holmes permanently becalmed in later middle age, and don't even mention Peter Pan β Rowling's decision to let her characters grow up is one of the most fascinating aspects of the project. The movies followed this model by having the major characters played by the same actors across what will be eight films by 2011 (the last is a two-parter), the changes in their voices and bodies regarded not as continuity errors but dramatic realism.Admittedly, this concession to nature also caused problems. Readers who joined the hero with The Philosopher's Stone were probably close to the school year he was in. But, by the time Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in 2007, the core audience for the series stretched from 8 to 21, with original readers now joined by primary schoolers who had caught up late with the early books and films. But because Rowling intentionally deepened and darkened the sequence as the cast met adult appetites, the later stories were not suitable for the boy wizard's youngest new fans, leading to tears at bedtime.The recommended age-range of the stories also introduced another controversy. Until the 21st century, a fully educated adult seen reading juvenile literature on public transport would expect to receive pitying stares and possibly even a visit from social services.However, Harry Potter was responsible for the common sight of people between their 20s and 70s sitting on trains or lying on beaches gripped by fiction that they would previously have bought only as gifts for children or grandchildren. To reduce the stigma, Rowling's publishers introduced the practice β later extended to Philip Pullman as well β of the novels being produced in two different jackets: kiddie-garish, wrinkly-pastel. My personal view is that older readers should pick on something their own size, but this vivid evidence of the universality of Rowling's appeal is a major reason that she and Harry Potter will stand as one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of popular fiction.The next decade will bring difficult decisions for the magical teenager's creator. It seems improbable that Hollywood will be happy to let such a profitable character go after eight blockbusters. Rowling's strong maternal interest in her protagonist β pursued legally in copyright infringement cases β suggests that any further Potter stories will come from her or no one. Which raises the question of what she will write next.Commercial logic suggests that the next publishing fortune is in finding the novels that the Harry Potter generation of child readers will buy in their 20s, 30s and 40s. A detective series by Rowling β perhaps featuring a sleuth along the lines of an older Hermione Granger β would sell in millions. But Rowling is rich enough not to have to do anything again. To have reached that position is a measure of the supernatural power of the Potter project.Harry PotterHarry PotterJK RowlingDaniel RadcliffeMark Lawsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank, dies Secretary who hid family from Nazis in Amsterdam for two years and saved second world war diary of teenager dies aged 100The office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands to help hide Anne Frank and her family for two years has died, the Anne Frank Museum announced today.Miep Gies, who was 100, saved the teenager's diary. Her website reported that she died on Monday after a brief illness. Maatje Mostar, an Anne Frank Museum spokeswoman, confirmed the report but gave no further details.Gies was the last survivor of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and company at the secret annexe, above an Amsterdam canal warehouse, where Anne, her parents, her sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during the second world war.After the annexe was raided by the German police, Gies gathered Anne's notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer.The teenager's diary, which she was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944.Gies refused to read the books and papers, saying that Anne's privacy was sacred.Later, she said that if she had read them she would have had to burn them because they incriminated those who had helped the family.Anne died of typhus, aged 15, in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, two weeks before it was liberated.Gies gave the diary to the teenager's father, Otto β the only one of those who hid in the annexe to survive the war β and he published it in 1947.After the publication, Gies worked to promote tolerance.She brushed aside the accolades for helping hide the Frank family as being more than she deserved β as though, she said, she had tried to save all the Jews in the occupied Netherlands."This is very unfair. So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work," she wrote in an email to the Associated Press days before her 100th birthday in February.The Diary of Anne Frank, the first popular book about the Holocaust, has been read by millions of children and adults around the world in 65 languages.Gies was bestowed with the title of Righteous Gentile by the Israeli Holocaust museum. She has also been honoured by the German government, the Dutch monarchy and educational institutions.Nevertheless, in 1997 she told schoolchildren: "I don't want to be considered a hero. Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty."I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."Born Hermine Santrouschitz on 15 February 1909 in Vienna, Austria, Gies moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape food shortages. She lived with a host family, who gave her the nickname Miep.In 1933, she took a job as an office assistant in the Otto Frank's spice business.After refusing to join a Nazi organisation in 1941, she avoided deportation to Austria by marrying her Dutch boyfriend, Jan Gies.As the Nazis increased their arrests and deportations of Dutch Jews, Otto Frank asked Gies to help hide his family in the annexe above the company's warehouse on Prinsengracht in July 1942."I answered: 'Yes, of course.' It seemed perfectly natural to me. I could help these people," she said. "They were powerless, they didn't know where to turn."Jan and Miep Gies worked with four other employees of the firm to sustain the Franks and those who shared the annexe.Touched by Anne's intelligence and loneliness, Miep brought the teenager her books and newspapers. "It seems as if we are never far from Miep's thoughts," Anne wrote.In her own book, Anne Frank Remembered, Gies recalled being in the office when the German police, acting on a tip that historians have failed to trace, raided the hideout in August 1944.After the raid and arrests, she went to the police station to offer a bribe for the Franks' release β but it was too late.On 8 August, they were sent to Westerbork, a concentration camp in eastern Holland, from where they were later deported to Auschwitz. A few months later, Anne and her sister, Margot, were transported to Bergen-Belsen.After the war, Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam, where he lived with the Gies family until he remarried in 1952.Miep worked for him as he compiled the diary, then devoted herself to talking about the book and answering letters with questions from around the world.After Otto Frank's death in 1980, she continued to campaign against Holocaust deniers and refute allegations that the diary was a forgery.She suffered a stroke in 1997, which slightly affected her speech, but remained in generally good health as she approached her 100th birthday.Her husband died in 1993, and she is survived by her son, Paul, and three grandchildren.Second world warHolocaustNetherlandsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |