But amid the hardship and broken dreams there's much humour and hope here, too. Billy's ridiculously competitive PE teacher has a great comic turn while Hines captures the quick-witted banter of his home town of Barnsley with great warmth.
A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. Barry Hines's classic is redolent of the s but retains a universal appeal. Topics Classics Classics corner Fiction reviews. Barry Hines, who has died aged 76, wrote about working-class lives for more than 40 years and, while the results were sometimes gloomy reality often is , he kept an eye for the decency and hope in people.
Everyone knew a Casper: half-boy, half-pigeon, disowned by his family and school, left to shuffle through life in a bob anorak and half-mast trousers. Almost everyone is aware of Kes, if not of its author, and many adults of a certain age claim it as one of the few books they have read.
They have a beginning, a middle and a sort of ending — mainly in that order — with the occasional flashback thrown in. Many readers still recall the sadness they felt at the death of the hawk in A Kestrel for a Knave.
Disney offered to make Kes, on the condition that the hawk recovered. Should we have sold out? I know which way would always be right for me. Son of Dick and Annie, Barry was born in the South Yorkshire mining village of Hoyland Common , near Barnsley, where he sought out the rolling fields and rich woods beyond the pithead. He studied physical education at Loughborough Training College, chiefly because he was an outstanding footballer; he had represented England grammar schools in an international match against Scotland.
He taught for two years in a London comprehensive before returning north to teach PE — this experience also informed A Kestrel for a Knave, which was set largely in classrooms and on school grounds. His debut book, The Blinder , was one of the first novels about football. Its protagonist was Lennie Hawk, a young player torn between his love of the game and college studies. He considered this one of the best critiques he had ever received. Barry was often considered to be part of the generation of celebrated northern writers and to a lesser extent the angry young man movement including Alan Sillitoe , Stan Barstow , John Braine and Keith Waterhouse , yet was a decade younger than most of them.
He wrote intermittently for radio and television. Another play, Two Men from Derby, broadcast by the BBC in , was based on the experiences of his grandfather who had a great talent for football but, according to Barry, never realised his potential. Despite the overwhelming apocalyptic theme, Barry drove the story into the lives of ordinary people, which served to further hone a sense of desolation.
Threads won four Bafta awards from a total of seven nominations. I first met Barry in when I had been sent to interview him by a newspaper. He asked me to meet him at his writing den, a small office on the campus of Sheffield Hallam University. I was struck by the starkness of the room: a postcard on the wall, a desk, a pen and a few sheets of paper, and that was about it — no books, computer or telephone.
On the floor was a tiny kettle, holding just enough water to fill a single mug. Barry did not go in for social protocol, asking how you were and whether you had had a pleasant journey. In short, he felt good to be around. The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Count of Monte Cristo. Daisy Jones and The Six. To Kill A Mockingbird. Brave New World. Little Women. The Secret Garden. The Outsiders. Hinton , S E Hinton. The Power of the Dog.
The Death Of Ivan Ilyich. The Lincoln Highway.
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