City Lights

by Keith Waterhouse

Keith Waterhouse tells the story of his childhood and adolescence in soot-blackened, tramcar-rattling Leeds. He describes roaming the cities theatres, variety-halls and teashops, and life as a junior reporter, as well as the characters he encountered, providing a portrait of England's past.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

218 pages, Paperback

First published March 17, 1994

About the author

Keith Spencer Waterhouse CBE, was a novelist, newspaper columnist, and the writer of many television series.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way that books often lead their readers to other books; that literary serendipity that sometimes ends in surprising places, and which all book lovers will recognise. I would never have searched out Keith Waterhouse’s 1994 memoir of his early life in Leeds if it hadn’t been mentioned so warmly by Andrew Martin in his recent book ‘Yorkshire: there and back’. It’s an absolute delight: Waterhouse paints a vivid portrait of a city seen through a child’s wondering eye, and pulls off the trick of how the same streets, markets and buildings change as he grows older and, eventually, as a young journalist on the Yorkshire Evening Post, gains access to parts of the city that were hidden from him as a child. Waterhouse was one of a generation of boys from Hunslet, one of Leeds’ poorest areas, to make a name for himself on a national stage (along with Peter O’Toole and Richard Hoggart) and City Lights is an illuminating and entertaining portrait of the Leeds he knew in the Thirties and Forties.

[Lyn Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished reading this amusing but poignant book. Waterhouse recounts tales of growing up in Leeds in the inter-war years and then of adolescence and his entry to the world of journalism and the writing for which he would become famous. Well written but easy to read, I chuckled my way through many of his anecdotes. Growing up in Leeds myself some 30 years after Waterhouse, I still recognised landmarks, habits, rituals and turns of phrase - "going to Town"- that marked my own childhood and fondly remembered the freedom to wander that we enjoyed but which is denied to children these days. While those with a connection to Leeds/the North of England will probably get the most from this book, anyone with an interest in social history and/or how early life experience influences writers and other artists should also find this a useful and interesting read.

[Adrian]

Short book on the early life of the newspaperman, playwright and novellist growing up in Leeds in the 1940s. Forever being encouraged to seek out country air and green spaces he knew early on his interest was in the city. He cut classes and used every excuse to explore city streets and become the afficionado of the good long stare. This book covers the years he spends working as a clerk at an undertakers' (the setting of 'Billy Liar'), his national service jaunt and his early years working as a reporter. Funny and well written.

[Leigh Linley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoying this book. it tells of Waterhouse's upbringing in pre-and post war Leeds. Some wonderful images, and I have a connection with this book - i know the places in it as live in Leeds. A surprsingly easy read, too.

[Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite ever book. I re-read it annually. I grew up in the same area in Leeds so all the references are familiar to me and nostalgically evocative!
I can relive the years of my childhood and enjoy the atmosphere and environment of 1950s Leeds.
Lush!

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elegantly written with humour and poignancy. If you come from Leeds it will feel oddly familiar as it is peppered with street names and companies that still exist today.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An autobiographical journey through Keith Waterhouses's childhood & adolescence...a coming of age for one of our greatest writers, who graduated 'with muted colours' from journalism to a wider literary world, in colourful novels, stage plays, television & radio & cinema too!
The backdrop to his ascent was a working-class Yorkshire - & very specifically wool-fibred Leeds! - which he describes with a nostalgic, though grimly realistic, style, encompassing family, locations, characters, events & a deep appreciation of the grubby streets & their architectural delights & disappointments: Waterhouse lives & breathes the atmosphere of pending 'progress', & not only in his own burgeoning career as a writer. He had a particular passion for the gritty theatre & music-hall performers, about to be devastated by the advent of 'talking pictures', television & the Second World War.
After the war, Waterhouse moves into the social & economic aftermath with an abiding confidence in his gifts for capturing human existence in his almost-peerless powers of understanding what makes people the way they are. This slim volume certainly shows the identity & motivations of Keith Waterhouse, whose first breakthrough came with his novels 'Billy Liar' & 'There Is A Happy Land' on the cusp of the 1960s, & peaked in the stage sensation that was 'Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell' from the mid-1980s.
A reading pleasure.

[Steven Pilling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was my dad's felt I should reread. Enjoyed the history but I'm not a memoir person.