This article focuses on Mrs Bull, the 'handywoman' who for a fee attends women in childbirth and also lays out the dead in the world of Hanky Park, despite the fact that it was by the 1930s illegal for her to do the first without being a qualified midwife. However, it will also look at… Continue reading New Article: ‘Call the Handywoman’: Birth and Death in Hanky Park (1933-1937)
Author: ambler1
New Article! Love on the Dole: the Cartoons (February 1935)
Larry Meath and Hanky Park as drawn by the cartoonist Tom Titt for the Tatler in February 1935 Believe it or not, there really were a set of reviews of the play of Love on the Dole which included cartoon or caricature responses to the play by cartoonists who went to see the play together… Continue reading New Article! Love on the Dole: the Cartoons (February 1935)
More Music! Revised version of ‘Two Songs, Two Hymns and a March in the Play of Love on the Dole’.
I first published this article about the use of music and song in the 1935 play adaptation of Love on the Dole at the end of January 2024. However, recently looking again at the play I realised that the two printed editions (one by Jonathan Cape, one by Samuel French) have a further hymn in… Continue reading More Music! Revised version of ‘Two Songs, Two Hymns and a March in the Play of Love on the Dole’.
New Article: Sam Grundy’s Car: Sally Hardcastle’s Resistance (1933; 1941)
The first appearance of Sam Grundy's car - a Wolseley County Saloon I think - in the 1941 film of Love on the Dole. Grundy has pulled up on a street in Hanky Park because he has seen Sally Hardcastle coming down the steps to the left. The bookie Sam Grundy's car might seem a… Continue reading New Article: Sam Grundy’s Car: Sally Hardcastle’s Resistance (1933; 1941)
New Article: Five Producers, Four Directors and Two Stars in Search of a Picture: the Tantalising Project of Love on the Dole as Film (1935-1941)*
Greenwood was very keen for Love on the Dole to appear in a film version after the success of his novel in 1933 and the play adaptation (co-written with Ronald Gow) in 1935. However, the BBFC (British Board of Film Censors) blocked production of a film three times - in 1935, 1936 and 1940 -… Continue reading New Article: Five Producers, Four Directors and Two Stars in Search of a Picture: the Tantalising Project of Love on the Dole as Film (1935-1941)*
Walter Greenwood: Not Just Love on the Dole 