Reviews: Ray Gosling: Sum Total and Personal Copy

Ray Gosling
Sum Total (3* to 5*)
Personal Copy: a Memoir of the Sixties (3* to 5*)

Ray Gosling was a writer and broadcaster who made television and radio programmes about ordinary people. His autobiographies, ‘Sum Total’ written when he was 21, and ‘Personal Copy’ when he was 40, are of varied consistency (some parts of them are 5*), but at their best are fascinating memoirs of the fifties and sixties. They document how, despite going to grammar school and university, which he left fairly quickly, he rejected any idea of a middle-class professional career and organized and campaigned for working-class causes. He conveys a strong sense of how the times they were a-changin’. His evocative eulogy to the now lost St. Ann's community of Nottingham is extraordinary.

My next post is about his film about Goole.


Key to star ratings: 5*** wonderful and hope to read again, 5* wonderful, 4* enjoyed it a lot and would recommend, 3* enjoyable/interesting, 2* didn't enjoy, 1* gave up.

Previous book reviews 

People who can‘t say ‘ull

The BBC Radio Four announcer said this afternoon that in half an hour there would be a programme about the 2017 City of Culture.

“I know where he means” I thought, but then he mystified me by saying it was about the Ezzall area of the city. It took me a moment to realise he meant ‘essle. There is a difference. In trying to mimic the local accent, he had over-emphasised the initial E.

Like the friend I had when I worked in Scotland. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how many times I demonstrated, she could never say ‘ull without it sounding wrong. The initial U was too strong, almost beginning with a glottal stop. The voice-onset came too soon. It’s a soft gentle U after the dropped H, not a hard one.

It seems to my ears that people not from the region cannot say ‘ull or ‘essle properly, or for that matter ‘owden, ‘edon, ‘altemprice or ‘umber. Please, unless you grew up in East Yorkshire or thereabouts, don’t try. Just put the H in.

The programme, incidentally, was Hull 2017: The Spirit of Hessle Road.