A Local Habitation: Life and Times, 1918-40

Life and Times #1

by Richard Hoggart

First published more than thirty years ago, this is the first part of Richard Hoggart's autobiography, tracing his early schooling, the friends he met and the mentors he admired and ends when, having obtained a degree from Leeds University, he decides to head off travelling. It describes the situation of working-class England between the wars and life in the back-to-backs in Hunslet.

Genres: Biography

240 pages, Hardcover

First published September 27, 1988

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second memoir of growing up in south Leeds in the interwar years I’ve read recently (the other was Keith Waterhouse’s City Lights). Both are equally fascinating for their re-creation of a now vanished working class world and culture (famously captured in Hoggart’s most famous book, The Uses of Literacy), but whereas Waterhouse’s memoir is written with the journalistic flair that befits the man, A Local Habitation has a more considered and academic approach, perhaps not surprising, given Hoggart’s university career and his role as one of the founders of the Cultural Studies discipline. That both men (and others) managed to escape the poverty of their family circumstances and the narrow horizons of their communities (Beeston for Waterhouse, neighbouring Hunslet for Hoggart) is a tribute to their determination, the adults who saw and nurtured the spark within, and a considerable helping of luck.

[Veronique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Issu d'une famille populaire des quartiers relégués de Leeds, Richard Hoggart relate son ascension jusqu'à l'université où il étudie la littérature anglaise, dans les années 30. Il décrit son ouverture progressive au monde, d'abord limité à la sphère familiale, à la rue, et au quartier ainsi que le quotidien fait de peu de ses jeunes années. Puis il montre comment l'école et le coup de pouce de quelques enseignants le conduisent vers une réelle ascension sociale. Il semble pourtant incapable, arrivé là, de se fondre dans le moule de l'establishment et reste profondément attaché à ses origines sociales dont il décrit la culture spécifique avec tendresse et bienveillance pesant le prix de chaque apport à sa juste valeur.