Matthew Engel

Anyone looking for a book on post-war Britain is spoilt for choice these days. The day before yesterday having become a lucrative happy hunting ground for publishers and historians: Dominic Sandbrook, Peter Hennessy, Alwyn W. Turner, David Kynaston and Andy Beckett, to name just the most well known exponents of the genre. I must admit I’m a sucker for these books with their mixture of history and nostalgia, politics and popular culture. Matthew Engel’s large book is an entertaining and wide-ranging survey of the first three decades of what no one in Britain, or indeed their right mind, ever called the second Elizabethan era (a sequel is apparently already underway).

Unlike Dominic Sandbrook, who seems to regard most of post-war British history as a necessary but unfortunate prelude to the arrival of Margaret Thatcher’s New Jerusalem, Engel has no ideological axe to grind. He certainly doesn’t ignore the bigger political picture but there is a strong focus on everyday life. He covers a longer period than Beckett but lacks the panoramic sweep of Kynaston (surely the best of the bunch). And he’s a lot more fun than Lord Hennessy.

Humour is actually Engel’s USP in this overcrowded market. He has a sardonic wit that often had me giggling inanely to myself and which enlivens even the over-familiar stretches of the narrative. He also has a tendency to make ex cathedra pronouncements based on little or no evidence. At one point he discusses a survey published in 2004 by the New Economics Foundation which found that Britons were never happier than in 1976. This has been the subject of heated debate among historians. The 1970s was, after all, a decade of runaway inflation, mass unemployment, industrial conflict and IRA bombs. Engel solves this contentious matter by simply declaring all such surveys ‘nonsense’. I expect some readers will be infuriated by this somewhat cavalier approach; personally, I rather admired his cheek.

Engel was born in 1951, so he lived through the period under discussion; an advantage in this kind of history, I think. He isn’t really an historian at all - he’s a journalist and has a journalistic instinct for the good story which illuminates an entire era. In 1959 the jockey Emmanuel (‘Manny’) Mercer was killed when he was thrown from his horse before the start of a race at Ascot and kicked in the head as he fell to the ground. This is how the spectators were informed of his death:‘The stewards regret to announce that the last race has has been abandoned as E. Mercer has been killed’. And that was that - end of announcement. As Engel observes, the poor man wasn’t even given the dignity of his first name, and the only regret expressed in this breathtakingly terse statement was for the cancellation of the next race. Upper lips don’t come any stiffer than that. I think it is safe to say that Britain has become a more emotionally intelligent and less chillingly formal society since then.… (altro)

I liked this book very much but found it a little sad. I learned recently that until the arrival of the steam train in the middle of the nineteenth century, most of the English were likely to identify themselves as being from their local county as opposed to being English. This was because travel and education was mostly limited to the wealthy. Following on from this time , this situation has reversed and local differences have become less visible, as this book reveals, to the point where there is little to define localities. I know it to be true from my own experience and something has been lost forever. I still enjoyed the read, learned lots and recommend it.
A Warwickshire girl.… (altro)

England is a country of many facets, and the best place to find these subtle differences is in each county. In this book Engel travels to each with the hope of find that very essence that makes that county different from it's neighbours. He visits the main cities of the counties, or particular parts that have made it famous, such as sporting grounds, or a particular food, a famous person or well know location. On the way he visits the cities that have cathedrals, as he has a personal call to light a candle in each one for his late son, who sadly died of cancer at he age of 13. It adds a certain poignancy to the journey.

Mostly this is an enjoyable book, it is stuffed full of enjoyable anecdotes and facts, and Engel tells you what he sees and experiences in each location. But interesting as it is, it did not have the same wit as a writer like Bryson. Which is a shame really as those subtle and vast differences that do exist between each county are a vast arena for humour. 2.5 Stars overall.… (altro)