Geoff Lee

In the library department where I work, we have a section of fiction books by 'local authors', mostly typescripts, small publications and dusty old hardbacks. In the spirit of being a helpful librarian, I decided to browse this collection for reading material, so that I might possibly be able to make a recommendation to one of our customers in the future. Geoff Lee's first novel, though only a slim volume, and technically about Lancashire and not Yorkshire (Lee is classed as 'local' because he now lives in Shipley), was definitely the right choice! After adjusting to the small type and reminiscence-style narrative, I really enjoyed this autobiographical tale of a Lancashire lad in the early 1960s.

"Would you like to sign this petition? It's to stop them shutting the station."
If he had said that once, he must have said it over a hundred times on that first night.
"I think it's disgraceful. They've only just had it painted."
"I bet Lord Beeching doesn't have to go on the train. I bet he gets driven round in a big posh car."
"Them MPs in London don't care one bit about folk like us."

Alan Greenall lives and works in Ashurst, Lancashire. He still lives at home, visits his grandparents regularly, and has recently become a draughtsman at a local engineering works. Aside from watching rugby league and spotting trains - which I must admit, almost put me off! - Alan's life is spent with the lads at work and his close-knit family at home. Then invites office girl Thelma to spend Christmas Day 1962 with his family, and his future happiness is sealed.

This is a delightful, if brief, story, which really does 'bring the past to life'. Geoff Lee, presumably the real Alan Greenall, weaves colourful local dialect and mocking humour with tales of the recent past - the Big Freeze of '62/'63, trade unions, and the Saints team - and a pride in the history of his home county. The characters Alan works with, and the ancedotes and jokes that fill much of the story, can only come from real life experience, and he had me laughing right along with them at the usual wind-ups and nicknames that occur when a group of men work together for a long time.

But there is also heartwarming nostalgia and sobering reality to be found, particularly with Thelma, Alan's 'young lady friend'. The chapter where Alan invites her to share Christmas with him, after discovering that she has no family of her own, really got to me: 'She sat down on the same seat she had been on earlier. It might even have been the same bus. He waved as it pulled away, and when the conductor came for her fare, he saw she was wiping the tears from her eyes.' And then his grandparents take her under their wing, nursing her back to health when she is struck down with 'flu over Christmas, and the sheer love and generosity of the whole family, indeed the whole community, reminded me what I love about northern folk.

'One Winter' is the first of four 'seasons' books by the author, charting Alan's family life from the sixties to the present day, and I shall definitely follow him through spring, summer and autumn!… (altro)