May Day 1971 – and British terrorists bomb a fashion boutique. ALWYN TURNER tells the story. Continue reading
Category Archives: Culture
Les McKeown: ‘A cheeky little upstart’
The late Bay City Rollers singer in his own words, as recorded by ALWYN TURNER. Continue reading
Old Faithful (& other 1970s sex aids)
ALWYN TURNER shares some letters from Forum magazine in 1970. Expect honey, steak and vacuum cleaners. Continue reading
George Orwell and the Whirligig of Fame
ALWYN TURNER reviews books on Orwell by Dorian Lynskey and John Rodden – one of them good, the other very, very bad. Continue reading
Looking for a New England
From The Stud to Absolute Beginners, Simon Matthews’s new book rounds up music movies of the 1970s and ’80s. ALWYN TURNER has a read. Continue reading
‘It was everything I feared’
From Morrissey and Bowie to Major and Blair, the Union Jack was everywhere in the 1990s, as ALWYN TURNER remembers. Continue reading
Rear-view review: The Tumbled House
DAN ATKINSON finds sex, plagiarism and libel in a 1959 novel by Winston Graham. Continue reading
Rear-view review: Charlie
Nigel Williams’s 1984 thriller involving trade unions, nationalised car manufacturers, far left politics – it’s a classic of its era, concludes DAN ATKINSON. Continue reading
Imperial fiction: Goodbye, Mr Chips
The best of all school stories? ALWYN TURNER thinks it might be. Continue reading
Novelist MPs #2: Woodrow Wyatt
Was Wyatt’s fiction as colourful as his diaries? wonders PAUL SAFFER. Continue reading
Halloween hits: In the Waxworks Late Last Night
A neglected 1930 song by Charlie Higgins, exhumed for Hallowe’en by ALWYN TURNER. Continue reading
Imperial fiction: The Lair of the White Worm
ALWYN TURNER reads Bram Stoker’s second-best-known novel – and finds there’s a steep fall-off after #1. Continue reading
