Fen Boy First

Edward Storey's topographical books on the fens have been imbued with a strong personal feeling for the area, but in this volume he writes an autobiographical account of how the place and the people influenced him. The book tells the story of a boy growing up during the 1930s and 1940s in the small fenland town of Whittlesey - a town that was then balanced precariously between agriculture and the brick industry. It is an intimate portrait of working-class life, where poverty and pride, religion and politics, were as deeply felt as love or, indeed, hate. The author has an unerring awareness of history and sets his story against the events of the past as well as the present. The values and traditions he learned from his grandparents, the early memories of his father's years in the brickyards, and his own efforts to find a wholly different way of life for himself, make this both a valuable social documentary and a sensitive evocation of a world that largely disappeared after World War II.