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London Belongs to Me

4.15 of 5 stars 4.15 · rating details · 190 ratings · 36 reviews

The story concerns the tenants of a large terraced house in pre-WWII London.

Real Londoners, old, young some in love, some murderers, some getting drunk, some dying and some being born.

Paperback, 340 pages

Published February 26th 2009 by Penguin Books (first published 1945)

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Feb 27, 2012 Bretty Brett rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The strength of this book is not really its London setting. It translates readily for anybody living anywhere - particularly in England. Norman Collins observes what makes the English working and middle classes tick with absolutely unerring accuracy, blends in comedy and drama and we have a glorious recipe for success. Dated, yet curiously not dated (do people really change that much? Wasn't the London of the 1930s, with its all night cafes, rather a racier place than many of us live in today?),...more

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Dec 04, 2012 J. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: this-england, norman-collins, boarding-house, between-the-wars

As dusk falls, the Park in the background becomes vast and mysterious, and the gas lamps that light your way along the main paths dwindle into the distance like lanterns in Illyria. But somehow or other it remains London, with the buses that cruise up Park Lane twinkling through the railings, and the air filled with the roar and rustle of innumerable wheels. Yes, it's London all right... Or rather, that's how it was in 1939.

Maybe no-one's idea of a five-star book although maybe a four-and-a-h...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Paul Brogan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: airport

I lived in England for 17 years, one third of my life, but never in London. Ironically, It was only when I moved to South Africa that I started visiting it regularly, but only the cosmopolitan world of The City, Hyde Park clubs, fancy hotels, and internationally acclaimed restaurants — the Champagne Charlie heart of the north bank — and not the domain of the real Londoner. I was no nearer understanding what it was like to live in this place than when I was rusticated in the provinces.

However, if...more I lived in England for 17 years, one third of my life, but never in London. Ironically, It was only when I moved to South Africa that I started visiting it regularly, but only the cosmopolitan world of The City, Hyde Park clubs, fancy hotels, and internationally acclaimed restaurants — the Champagne Charlie heart of the north bank — and not the domain of the real Londoner. I was no nearer understanding what it was like to live in this place than when I was rusticated in the provinces.

However, if I’d expected London Belongs to Me to lift the lid on the home of Pepys and Johnson, of Churchill and Marx, or of Jack the Ripper and child prostitutes, to reveal seven million Michael Caines in their natural habitat, or to lay bare the beating hearts of a unique human species, I’d have been disappointed. Rather, I found several Londoners’ stories cleverly interwoven by a master raconteur and told in a way that exposed the place for what it was: my hometown multiplied 70 times. Everything — the drama, the crime, the heroism, the pace, the despair, the politics — is familiar from my youth, indeed surprisingly so, just a lot bigger, more intense, and more inescapable.

Ten Dulcimer Street boasts an accountant, a clairvoyant, an ageing actress, and a murderer-stroke-car-thief, and, like the city that made them, they mix stoutheartedness and neighbourliness with an unrelenting and selfish drive for personal advancement. Despite the book being published in 1945 and telling of the period between 1938 and 1940, when the country was about to go to war and the capital bombed, it feels astonishingly contemporary. If ever you’ve caught a taxi and wondered how the driver lives and whether he has a small house with grandkids somewhere in Hammersmith, or you’ve caught a rush-hour tube and found yourself walking faster to keep up with office workers as they hustle through the rain to their dreary cubicles, their existence detached from what you see and hear and smell in this capital of capitals, you’d do worse than savouring the sensations of this book.

In reality, I can see only two major differences between London and the boondocks. The first is the inordinate expense, effort, and time required to move around the place, especially between home and work, which seems odd given that, to my mind, the whole purpose of a big city is to make it easier for workers and employers to access each other. To spend three hours every day to and from work is not unusual. The other difference is the cost of this privilege, especially housing.

Jerry Rafferty sang of London that it had ‘so many people, but it’s got no soul’. I’m not sure this is true, except in the sense, perhaps, that, for so large a place, people have no increased sense of intimacy. Indeed, they are less likely to know their neighbours than people elsewhere in the country do, but there is more life. In an attempt to justify staying in the place, I’ve heard Londoners use this word before, defining it loosely as the cinemas, the galleries, the museums, the shows, and the sports arenas.

Which they never visit. Mainly because, what with the travel and the high cost of everything, they can’t afford either the time or the moola to do so.

I can only imagine, then, that what Collins meant by London Belongs to Me was that the average Londoner was somewhat more tolerant of hardship than other mortals and strangely content to be surrounded by wealth and art and history and life, claiming ownership, but not possession. All of which merits my grudging respect, but, cor blimey, I’m glad I’ve never lived there.(less)

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Jun 18, 2012 Nigeyb rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I'd just finished reading five novels by Patrick Hamilton (Hangover Square, The Slaves Of Solitude, and the Gorse Trilogy); a biography of Patrick Hamilton (Through a Glass Darkly: The Life of Patrick Hamilton); and a biography of Julian MacLaren-Ross (Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia: The Bizarre Life of Julian Maclaren-Ross). Reading these books helped me to realise how much I enjoy books about London. Coincidentally Amazon recommended this book to me (and it was a book that I'd not heard of unt...more

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Sep 09, 2010 Ian Mapp rated it 5 of 5 stars

A book chosen solely for its title.

This was written in 1945 and is a sprawling soap opera of a book, detailing the lives of the inhabitants of one london house, the ficional 10 Dulcimer Street.

Collins does a peerless job with characterisation. We know them all, their traits, motivations, desires and fears and he delivers it all with a comic flouish, against the back drop of the second world war.

The house is owned by a widowe - Mrs Vizzard. She is worried about the reputation of the house, whos...more

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Jan 27, 2011 F.R. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Of all the world’s great cities, London seems to lend itself best to being portrayed as poky and provincial. Not for Paris, sad tales of women struggling to get together enough money to feed the electric meter; not for New York, stories of lonely night-watchmen who are just delighted to have one ring of a stove and some canned food. London is a sprawling city which can easily be made dingy and small (particularly the London of the pre-war years), and this is what Norman Collins’ evocative novel...more Of all the world’s great cities, London seems to lend itself best to being portrayed as poky and provincial. Not for Paris, sad tales of women struggling to get together enough money to feed the electric meter; not for New York, stories of lonely night-watchmen who are just delighted to have one ring of a stove and some canned food. London is a sprawling city which can easily be made dingy and small (particularly the London of the pre-war years), and this is what Norman Collins’ evocative novel does. ‘London Belongs to Me’ is in many ways an epic tale following many characters over a number of years, but with such a concentration on the little details in life, it still manages to feel triumphantly undemonstrative and British.

The ambitious narrative follows the residents of a South London boarding house: the widowed landlady; a couple and their daughter, a failed actress well past her prime, an overweight widower, another widow with the mechanic son as the apple of her eye and a newly arrived spiritualist. Starting at Christmas 1938, it ends on the same occasion in 1940. As such it takes in the growing threat of Hitler, the start of the War, Dunkirk and the Blitz, all while examining the minutiae of these Londoner’s lives. An actual précis of the plot would be hard to pull off as there’s just so much of it, but it does include young romance, old romance, politics, mental illness, murder, nightclubs, police raids, unsuitable flatmates, breach of promise suits and communion with the dead. There are also a lot of visits to Lyon’s Tea Houses, which I particularly like, as we don’t have those anymore and they do seem a perfect symbol of lost London.

Norman Collins (an author I’ve never encountered before),weaves together these narratives magnificently well, creating believable characters – with both flaws and virtues – and having them deal with life in a way which seems so real, you can barely detect the author’s hand. Not all the plots work (Dr Otto Hapfel, for example, really goes nowhere), but reading this feels like an excellent, empathetic slice of living history.

A film was apparently made in 1947 (with a real filleting of plot, from what I’ve read on Wikipedia), and Thames adapted it in the 70s. But if the BBC are looking round for something to make ten episodes of to fill their Sunday night schedules, they could do a lot worse.(less)

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Aug 08, 2012 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars

A masterful visualisation of London under the shadow of war, told through a series of interlinked vignettes that follow the lives of the various inhabitants of a south London terrace, the book (Like all of Collin's work) is infused with a light humour based on pitch-perfect observation and a fantastic eye for the most banal details, enthralling throughout and managing the difficult task of making the reader invest the same amount of emotion in a scene about a broken bicycle as a climactic murder...more

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Sep 22, 2012 Marc Maitland rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book took me almost a year to read (all 730-odd pages of it) but was neither because I did not find it a compelling book, or that I am a particularly slow reader, but rather that it was written in such a way that enabled me to delve into it, and leave it for several days (or even weeks) and then come back to it, without any difficulty of recap. It also helped that its 90-odd chapters are themselves subdivided into numbered sub-chapters, thus enabling convenient breaks in reading that might...more This book took me almost a year to read (all 730-odd pages of it) but was neither because I did not find it a compelling book, or that I am a particularly slow reader, but rather that it was written in such a way that enabled me to delve into it, and leave it for several days (or even weeks) and then come back to it, without any difficulty of recap. It also helped that its 90-odd chapters are themselves subdivided into numbered sub-chapters, thus enabling convenient breaks in reading that might be more difficult to achieve with longer single chapters.

One other feature which sets this book apart is that it is more of an episodic description of life from the pre-war London working-class life c.1938, into and through the war years, as seen from the perspectives of a number of individuals. What comes closest to an enduring storyline is the tale of young Percy Boon and what leads up to his trial and life imprisonment and the direct and indirect consequences on those around him. But it would be overstating it to say that this was the book’s central theme, or its raison d’etre: I could imagine the book being just as good a read without its inclusion at all. In fact, the same could be said for any one of the central characters and the storylines associated with them. What makes the book compelling and convincing is the whole: the whole being much more than the sum of its individual parts. It bears a resemblance to soap-opera in that sense, characters come and go as do storylines, but when taken as a whole, it is a painting that is vivid and realistic.

As for those characters, wonderfully detailed sketches of characteristics and “types” shine through and leave one believing that one was really there in Dulcimer Street, Kennington, at a time when trams were running and German bombs raining down, and real people and places are being described. To that extent, the storyline becomes almost irrelevant – it is the characters in the context of real places that matters. I was left feeling that I could actually picture the characters concerned, and even picture their faces, and wondering whether this was entirely down to the writing: I then remembered that there was a 1970s television series based on the same book and in a curious way I had been sumliminating some of those very same faces without realising it at the time!

A great book, from an author who had much to offer about a fascinating contemporary scene (the book was first published in 1945), and it leave me wanting to discover his other (if any) writings of a similar genre.
(less)

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Feb 18, 2011 Leslie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20th-century-fiction, war

Spans the time from Christmas 1938 to Christmas 1940 among a group of Londoners living in or associated with a house south of the river in a neighbourhood on the edge between middle-class and working-class respectability. Mrs Vizzard owns the house, lives in the basement, worries about the new tenant, the foreign-looking Mr Squales, and consoles herself with spiritualism; Mr and Mrs Josser live on the first floor with their daughter who wants to move out and room with a friend but doesn't dare t...more

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Sep 29, 2010 Andrea Bowhill rated it 5 of 5 stars

London Belongs to Me opens in 1938, in the run-up to the Second World War. Its narrative concerns a group of disparate characters who share a rented house in Kennington. The action takes place entirely within London, apart from a handful of scenes in the Home Counties. Us readers see much of the city through the characters and what they see varies enormously. We get a glimpse of the city itself through Mr Josser, as he retires from his job; we encounter London’s more Bohemian elements through th...more London Belongs to Me opens in 1938, in the run-up to the Second World War. Its narrative concerns a group of disparate characters who share a rented house in Kennington. The action takes place entirely within London, apart from a handful of scenes in the Home Counties. Us readers see much of the city through the characters and what they see varies enormously. We get a glimpse of the city itself through Mr Josser, as he retires from his job; we encounter London’s more Bohemian elements through the eyes of his daughter as she seeks an independent life for herself. London’s seedier side comes to us through Connie, the elderly actress-cum-nightclub hostess. We also see the law courts in action, in the story of Percy Boon, the young mechanic who becomes involved in stealing cars to order, before finding himself embroiled in something far worse. However in the case of Mrs Vizzard, the widowed landlady, every man potential tenant is a potential husband but her loneliness puts her at the mercy of a charlatan, a self-proclaimed medium by the name of Mr Squales.

What’s very interesting in this novel is Mr Josser’s participation in the South London Parliament it reflects the helplessness of the wider body politic in the face of Nazi aggression and expansionism. It also shows us something of Norman Collins’s courage in writing and publishing this novel when he did. It was published in 1945, during the terrible war. At the time, the nerves of all of those involved would have been rubbed raw by the events of the last six years. That it sold hugely is a testimony to the writer’s skill in portraying his flawed cast of characters and their beleaguered city so vividly as well as his readers’ hunger for books that reflected their own, often harrowing experiences.

The characters are captivating but none bigger than the setting, London, the train, trams, and offices, to the tea warehouse, nightclubs, this is where London comes alive. it comes across as a black comedy in parts, I loved it, and it sits with my favourites.

Andrea Bowhill(less)

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Oct 02, 2010 Frank rated it 3 of 5 stars

This seems to be often ranged with other 'forgotten classics' of the 30s and 40s like, most notably, the novels of Patrick Hamilton and Julian MacLaren-Ross. I don't think it's as good as that, the other two are more interesting novelists, who write far better and have a more gripping (if depressing) and articulated outlook on life. But Collins' novel is enjoyable for all that. It's like a pleasant little soap opera about ordinary Londoners' lives around the outbreak of WWII. It often read like...more

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Sep 20, 2010 Sharonwhiting2 rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the best thng I have ready in a long time. Written in 1936 it charts the life of the residents of a South London boarding house. It paints a really clear picture of both the ordinariness of many peoples lives and the sleazy underworld of London life. The characters are really well drawn and I felt like I really got to know them. Norman Collins was a journalist and the quality of his writing makes this joy to read.

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Dec 28, 2011 Venuskitten rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The everyday lives of residents of 10 Dulcimer Street, a large London house divided into flats, are disrupted by the gathering clouds of war, in a well-written and witty story that encompasses all human life. The book is funny and sad in parts and the characters are three dimensional and realistic. The book is long but engaging and I was sorry to leave the characters at the end.

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Jun 25, 2011 Fran rated it 5 of 5 stars

Probably my favourite book of all time. At my wedding, my father read out some congratulation cards during his speech. One card reduced me to floods of tears; my parents had signed it from all the characters of this book. It was such a personal and indulgent moment between my parents and me as nobody else recognised the names. It made this book even more special to me. :)

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May 08, 2013 Michael Sterckx rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you want to know what it was like to live in London in the late 30s this will tell you. A world of delapidated boarding houses, lonely people, criminals, fading actresses, fake mediums, meat paste sandwiches and uncomfortable trams. It's never depressing and he offers sympathy for every character. You are sad to leave all them when it ends.

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Feb 05, 2013 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book makes me feel like I am at home with a big cup of tea and the rain pouring outside. There is something ver soothing about it as it follows the life of ordinary Londoners in a street in Kennington. Conversationally written and beautifully described characters, this book really is a hidden gem that deserves to be much better known.

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Jan 06, 2013 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: julie-read

I loved this book. I heard about it on radio 4 A Good Read. It was full of vivid characters. The Jossers are full of love and kindness. Connie is tragic and hungry for adventure.. She would have loved today's obsession with 'celebs'. I did not want to leave them behind when the book ended.

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Jun 14, 2012 Sarah Harkness rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Social history lovers

Recommended to Sarah by: Martin Kelner, R4 'A Good Read'

What a great find. I had never heard of Norman Collins but I will definitely read more by him. It made me laugh, the characters were excellent - not as caricatured as Dickens, but a range of believable funny Londoners. Most of all I loved the detailed pictures of 1939 London - the social observation is priceless. It's a long book - 650 plus pages, and I had a feeling Collins hadn't really wanted to end when he did, it could have gone on and on...

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Sep 19, 2012 Gareth Evans rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of those novels that is more enjoyable for the social history and nostalgia (of the 'ah did they really do it like that back then' kind) rather than as a novel per se. The plot, given that the Jossers et al live in very interesting time, is somewhat mundane. But that, I think, is the point. Ordinary people in extraordinary times. Great stuff, almost like an R C Sheriff novel in triplicate(it is a shade overlong)

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Aug 03, 2011 Lynda Spadaccini added it

brilliant, brilliant and more brilliant! Another Penguin modern classic that was a joy to discover. Collins handles numerous characters, the city of London and the impending war with ease, humour and subtle comment. It's a bit like a literary version of Eastenders.

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Sep 06, 2009 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book itself is a little soap-opera around the lives of a group of tenants of a shared house in Kennington, set against the backdrop of the pivotal events of 1939 and 1940.

The plotting and the writing are good enough to engage the reader and keep them engaged, however the glimpse into a recent past is the really fascinating part.

Recommended - and highly recommended to London readers.

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May 10, 2013 Stephanie Rampton rated it 5 of 5 stars

Such an evocative book - you are literally transported back to 1930s London. Convincing characters and beautifully written. I loved every minute of it.

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Feb 27, 2012 Sally Wyllie rated it 5 of 5 stars

A timeless book with humour and sadness but most of all extremely good at describing the ordinariness and you understand exactly what he meant even in 2012

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Mar 03, 2013 Anna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This is a long book, but compelling and easy to read. Normally I like my books to have a little bit more depth, but I found this was the perfect balance between substance and lightness that made it perfect escapism, as I read a bit each lunchtime at work. I think it worked so well because of the characters are brilliantly drawn, and feel very ‘whole’. Even with obvious flaws that mean you should probably dislike them, you also see their vulnerability, their humanity, and you can’t help but like...more

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Aug 23, 2010 Michaelbraga rated it 4 of 5 stars

Amazing evocation of a city on the brink of a terrible future through the daily lives of ordinary folk

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Jan 11, 2012 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Loving this forgotten book! Each page crackles with humor and sharp observation. I am chuckling on the bus. Remarkably, although this is a novel of it's time (1938), it doesn't feel dated. Can't figure why this isn't better known, it was hard to find and so far, I cannot find much critici. I am reading a sad, faded, cheap copy and it was the only one I could find in the whole west coast library system.

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Oct 29, 2010 Holly rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

Recommended to Holly by: Bridget

i loved, loved this novel. It's been a long time since I've spent a few days missing the characters once I finished the book.

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Dec 14, 2012 Sue Hyams rated it 5 of 5 stars

A huge book but an easy read. The characters are so well drawn that you feel you know them personally just within a few pages.

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Apr 17, 2013 Hayley rated it 4 of 5 stars

A book which draws you into the minutiae of its inhabitants lives with its charming, conspiratorial style. I finished this book last night and I find myself missing the company of the folks of 10 Dulcimer Street. I found it often cinematic in an understated way.

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Jan 14, 2012 Stefano Costantini rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: not-finished

Just a slow soap opera. Boring. Should have abandoned it earlier.

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About Norman Collins

Norman Collins born 3 October 1907, died 1982, was a British writer, and later a radio and television executive, who became one of the major figures behind the establishment of the Independent Television (ITV) network in the UK. This was the first organisation to break the BBC’s broadcasting monopoly when it began transmitting in 1955.

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