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A review by andrew61
South Riding by Winifred Holtby
4.0
What a fascinating piece of Social history this book was as it portrayed a small town in the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire in 1932 which highlights the massive social changes taking place within an England still in the shadow of the first war but looking to the future.
the book centres on Sarah Burton a young woman who applies for job as Headmistress in the girls school at Maythorpe. At her interview she meets the great and good of local politics including the formidable Aldermen Mrs Beddows and Robert Carne the local estate owner and it is local politics that also forms a major thread in the books plot. Sarah, although from the area brings her radical London ideas about women's independence and the education of girls and quickly clashes with carne whose daughter is sent to the school but also intervenes to encourage the education of another girl from impoverished background whose talents are obvious.
Add into the plot a woman locked in an asylum because she is a bit wild, the redevelopment of a road straight through the poor area of town, death in childbirth, appalling health education and sanitary standards, corruption, socialism and post war trauma and this is a book that seems ahead of its time and was totally absorbing with characters I enjoyed . Definitely a highlight of this years reading.
the book centres on Sarah Burton a young woman who applies for job as Headmistress in the girls school at Maythorpe. At her interview she meets the great and good of local politics including the formidable Aldermen Mrs Beddows and Robert Carne the local estate owner and it is local politics that also forms a major thread in the books plot. Sarah, although from the area brings her radical London ideas about women's independence and the education of girls and quickly clashes with carne whose daughter is sent to the school but also intervenes to encourage the education of another girl from impoverished background whose talents are obvious.
Add into the plot a woman locked in an asylum because she is a bit wild, the redevelopment of a road straight through the poor area of town, death in childbirth, appalling health education and sanitary standards, corruption, socialism and post war trauma and this is a book that seems ahead of its time and was totally absorbing with characters I enjoyed . Definitely a highlight of this years reading.