Its real evil lies far deeper and is quite
uneradicable. We passed through a ratherbeautiful village. Practically the whole
family income goes in keeping upappearances. Butundoubtedly the essential feeling is
still there.
They slung their sacksover shoulder or bicycle, and
started on the two-mile trudge back to Wigan. Indeed I ratherwonder that it has
never been filmed.
But the cult isoften adopted by people who are not
by birth Northerners themselves. Behind me a railway embankment made of the slagfrom
furnaces.
But there was another and more serious difficulty.
And feelings ofthis kind, which are the result of tradition, are not affected by
visiblefacts.
Just fancy the street boys trying to frighten his
horsenow! Unfortunately, the discomfort of dirtiness is chieflysuffered by other
people.
You get nofurther if you do not realize that
snobbishness is bound up with a speciesof idealism.
Everyone knows that theunemployed have got to get
fuel somehow.
Justfancy a working-class boy of eighteen allowing
himself to be caned!
A friend they are passing callsout and asks them
where they have borrowed it.
Here you have an interesting example of the
Northern cult. Here is an extract from one of his letters to me: I am in Clitheroe,
Lanes. It was rubbingshoulders with the tramps that cured me of it. Olives, vines,
and vices sumsup the normal English attitude towards the Latin races. And there wont
be so many children, either,if the birth-controllers have their way. It is useless
tosay that the middle classes are snobbish and leave it at that.
Practically the whole family income goes in keeping
upappearances. Nowadays, thank God, I have nofeelings of that kind. There was the
same wild rush of ragged figures asbefore.
And feelings ofthis kind, which are the result of
tradition, are not affected by visiblefacts.
It makes social intercourse difficult to personsof
sensitive nostril.
But move backwards into the MiddleAges and you are
in a world almost equally foreign. Butundoubtedly the essential feeling is still
there. But traditions are not killed byfacts, and the tradition of Northern grit
lingers. It seemed to me dreadful that the doom of a job shoulddescend upon anyone
at fourteen.
And there wont be acoal fire in the grate, only
some kind of invisible heater.
I have dwelt on these subjects because they are
vitally important.