Tony Rossiter shows how a northern writer made his breakthrough by writing about the kind of people he knew
Together with novelists such as John Braine and Alan Sillitoe and playwrights John Osborne and Arnold Wesker, Stan Barstow was one of the ‘angry young men’ who came to the fore in the late 1950s and early 60s. Their workingclass heroes were characterised by a disillusionment with traditional society and a desire to escape to a better world.