Saville — David Storey

‘I never thought we’d do it. Come up from nowt, and now see where we are’, says Colin Saville’s father when his son wins a place at the grammar school in town. In spite of his brilliance, Colin is uneasy in finding his footing in 1940s middle class society, so different from the mining village of his childhood. He makes tentative friendships and meets girls over long, empty summers but feels like an outsider with them and, increasingly, at home.

Following the pattern of David Storey’s own early years, Saville is a remarkably honest portrait of the tensions between parents and children, the difficulties of making one’s own way in life and the social divisions that persist still.