Snuff and Temperance — Paul Harrison

From the riotous trauma of the town's darkest hours in 1919 to the tribulations at one of the UK's first salsa clubs, these stories explore the lives of Lutonians past and present. This is an eclectic look at a much-maligned corner of Bedfordshire, and beyond, with themes of travel, protest and identity. While some Lutonians have left and returned, eccentric Walter Greer remains embedded in his town of petrol and lace, searching for ‘Snuff and Temperance' in streets where excess and piety still co-exist amongst the diversity of twenty-first century Britain. In the final, longer story, ‘Homage to Far Cawley Knoll', the lives of disparate Lutonians we have already met, are plaited together in dramatic interplay, as we follow Eamonn Doherty's desperate plight set against the backdrop of the bitterly cold winter of 2013