What Happens in Love on the Dole? – Plot Summaries and Other Useful Devices (1934 /2024)

Introduction

I have noticed over the last three years that quite a common search on this Walter Greenwood site is for ‘a plot summary of Love on the Dole‘. Personally, I am not that keen on plot summaries, partly because I find them difficult to read to the end or with much interest. Would one not be better to go ahead and read the story itself (whether novel or play) or watch the film? (1)

However, thinking further I have concluded that this needs a little reconsideration – though reading the text itself should be the primary experience, plot summaries have their uses, both before and after a personal reading or viewing of a text (I prefer after!) and of course also have their own characteristic generic features. They can, for example, give a pared-down overview of a complex narrative, and open up or remind the reader of a central core of interests, some perhaps unexpected. I am therefore finally going to do something in the way of offering some plot summaries of Love on the Dole as a starting point or as a later point of reflection on the narrative. I also note that existing plot summaries or synopses for Love on the Dole (novel, play or film) available on the web are few and far between and vary greatly in quality. I will provide links to those and also some commentary about my view of their usefulness and accuracy. A plot or story summary or synopsis is actually not that easy to write and while such a genre might look objective and neutral I suspect that each will still bring out particular aspects of a narrative and give less emphasis to other elements, and are thus actually interpretative too. By all means feel free to skip through to the material you immediately need or want.

Part 1 is focused on a useful and very concise 1934 story summary of the play, together with a synopsis of the scenes in the play and concise descriptions of the play’s characters.

Part 2 is an overview of existing plot summaries on the web, with some evaluation of their accuracy and usefulness.

Part 3 is made up of my plot summaries of the novel, the play and the film. These are full and accurate (maybe too full?). One thing they do show is that while broadly the same things happen in novel, play and film versions, there are some large differences too (look at the ‘villainous’ Ned Narkey, for instance: he is an important character in the novel, and completely omitted from the play, while the film covers about half of his story as given in the original novel, and completely cuts – for censorship reasons relating to official policy that the British police never be portrayed negatively in films – the part where Sam Grundy gets the violent Ned a job in the police force).

1. The 1934 Story Summary, Synopsis of Scenes and Description of Characters

Since there is an existing early plot summary or anyway summary of the story (of the play) from 1934, this seems like a good place to start. I also thought that maybe it would be helpful to give a concise synopsis of the scenes and an account of key characters, and as these too both exist from the same 1934 text, I thought I would start from those accounts.

Here then is the Samuel French edition ‘Story of the Play’ (US edition, New York, 1934, p. 3) which I think makes a very good job of giving (in only 125 words) a remarkably concise account of what happens in the play. Strictly-speaking this is not the most traditional kind of plot summary, because actually it gives not just bare facts about what happens but also some pithy explanations of both the context and why things happened, without going in to too much detail (all to the good in my view).

This clearly does not set out to give a blow by blow account of what happens in the plot (it says nothing, for example of Harry Hardcastle’s apprenticeship or of Mr Hardcastle being laid off from his mining job, and nothing about the group of older women in Hanky Park – and even avoids naming all the characters in order to simplify things and save words). Instead the summary gives a general characterisation of the main people on whom the story focuses and divides them into two groups, both centred on the Hardcastle family . These are ‘the older folks’ and ‘the younger people’ – whose typical experiences and reactions it sums up. It starts by making a key point: that these are not initially the hopelessly poor, nor those whose actions might (in some people’s view) have contributed to their current status. No, they are ‘respectable and responsible working-class people’ whose life is only ‘reduced to dogged survival’ by recent circumstances, that is the Depression of 1929 which then dominated much of the nineteen-thirties across the world, including in both Britain and the USA. The attitude of the older Hardcastles is contrasted with that of younger people: the parents have long experience of poverty, if not this severe, and still place their hopes in conventional capitalist economics, with a belief that after a down-turn the economy will bounce back.

The younger generation have less faith in trade cycles: they are ‘restless’ and want and need to get on with their lives NOW. Strictly-speaking, Sally’s actions as described do not seem that restless – she would wait for Larry, but since he is killed in ‘a labor parade’, there is no longer any point in waiting. This seems somewhat different from Harry Hardcastle and Helen Hawkins who end-up having to marry quickly since she is pregnant: but they have no resources to support either marriage or a child, as Harry has been unemployed for many months and Helen cannot work at her textile mill for a considerable period before and after the birth of their baby. They have no choice but to take up the ‘pittance’ offered by the remaining and shameful fragments of the ancient ‘poorhouse relief’ system. Meanwhile, Sally Hardcastle takes the only course available to her and her family to gain enough to live on: in return for Sam Grundy’s provision through corruption of jobs for her father and brother, she goes ‘to keep house for a wealthy man who can support her’. I note that the account is rather inexplicit about the exact nature of Sally’s ‘bargain’ with Sam Grundy, though up to a point so too are the novel and play and film.

Next the edition has the cast list from the first US production in New York (omitted here) and a ‘Synopsis of Scenes’ reproduced below (p.6).

Just as the ‘Summary of the Story’ first identifies some of what it sees as the defining identities of the characters of Love on the Dole, so this synopsis of scenes first identifies the environment in which the story takes place. I note that it is quite specific about the setting: ‘Hanky Park, a suburb of Manchester, England’, but then immediately gives the story multiple alternative settings: ‘though their counterparts are to be found in the congested manufacturing districts of almost any country’. This potentially decouples the play from its original setting and gives a producer and company permission to set it in an analogous place, perhaps for example an industrial suburb of a US city. I do not know that anyone has ever taken up this invitation. Despite the note at the bottom of the page about ‘eliminating’ the ‘phonetic spelling’ of the Lancashire dialect in this edition, the New York production kept the Lancashire setting and speech patterns. Nevertheless, Wendy Hiller, who was one of the few actors to play in both the London and New York productions (she was a big star by 1936) found it necessary to tone down the dialect/ accent in order to reach the New York audiences (Daily News, 26 February 1936, p.1). However, there is, of course, still time for a director to put on a differently located and accented production.

The scene descriptions make it clear that their locations are fairly restricted: Act I and Act III are ‘interior’ domestic scenes set wholly in the Hardcastle’s kitchen, while Act II is made up of three ‘exterior’ scenes, two only just outside the Hardcastle’s house in the ‘back entry’ (a back entrance to the house’s yard), and the third outside Hanky Park ‘on the moors’. Of course, in a theatre version of the story, it is essential to have scenes which are stage-able, and that practically excludes scenes included in the novel such as those in Marlowe’s works, the street outside the Hardcastle’s house, and the Bexley Square protest against the Means Test, which is reported in the play from off-stage. The moors scene was represented through a large stage rock which was much admired in a number of press-reviews, seen against a moon on the backdrop. The film version in its turn could reinstate these scenes in physical locations, though due to the limitations on outside filming at this period it actually did this through the large and superb sets of both interiors and exteriors which contemporary studios could build and host. The two notes by the author firstly do some ‘translation’ work of technical benefit terms, explaining that the British ‘Means Test’ is the equivalent of the US ‘Investigation for Home Relief’. It is noticeable that the note is very ‘temperate’in its explanation of the Means Test, suggesting that as a system it is a reasonable measure to ‘prevent payment to persons not actually in need of assistance’. This was not generally Greenwood’s view (see Walter Greenwood: ‘Tragedy Behind the Play’ Interview (Hannen Swaffer, Daily Herald, 1935) *). The note seems to be very cautious, implying an anxiety that US audiences might not necessarily be predisposed to take a sympathetic view of those drawing benefit when their insurance payments had been timed out. The second note returns to the already discussed issue of dialect and setting.

There then follows a concise one-page ‘Description of Characters’, which unlike the ‘Story Summary’, is also present in the British Samuel French edition of he play.

Though headed ‘Character Description’ it seems to me rather noticeable that actually this is more interested in appearance than character in a wider and deeper sense, especially in the case of female characters, though in some cases at least this outer description is seen to imply qualities of character. Thus I feel that the physical description of Sally as ‘a fine looking girl of twenty’ tells us very little about her powers of resilience and optimism, nor her awful coming to terms with contemporary economic circumstances. The description of her mother again sees women almost wholly in terms of appearance, though understands that these are not only ‘natural’ or inherited attributes but are also impacted by economic and physical environment. There is a similar pattern in the descriptions of the following three male characters: appearance first, then some explicit or implicit explanation of the influence of the lives they have led. Is Harry ‘slightly built’ because he has been brought up on a sparse diet? Mr Hardcastle is more robustly built, presumably because he has worked all his adult life as a coal-miner and developed the physique which is essential for anyone who works down the pit. Perhaps also this physique suggests that earlier in the century there he had access to a more adequate diet? The comment on his ‘reliable face’ is at last something of a genuine interpretation of mental character. Larry’s description does start with his physical appearance, and if it consisted only of the first clause would be very like the description of Sally. However, it goes on to add two more items which reflect on his experience and on his inner mental capacity and endurance: he is an almost exhausted optimist, but nevertheless his political vision of something different from Hanky Park sustains him to carry on fighting.

Next we get the descriptions of four female characters, the three older women who make up the ‘chorus’ in the play, and Helen Hawkins, Harry’s girlfriend and then wife. To deal with Helen first, one might have expected her to be described just after Harry; I take it that her ranking as the penultimate character suggests she has a relatively minor role. Nevertheless, her description resembles that of Harry in reflecting the tough upbringing that the’ younger people’ have had, though since she is female modified by a comment on attractiveness together with the more explicit comment that she is ‘rather hungry-looking’. Next are three of the ‘older folk’ for whom the ‘Story of the Play’ did not have space. The are seen almost entirely in terms of appearance – clothing, unsavoury hygiene, being ‘large’. The only expansion is about origins: Mrs Jike is a Londoner originally. I understand that conciseness is important here, but even so the restriction of description seems rather inadequate for these three – what about Mrs Jike’s enjoyment of the ‘supernatural’, Mrs Dorbell’s cunning nose for business, and Mrs Bull’s business as a ‘handywoman’, her sometimes unconventional advice, and her belief in Labour politics? Finally comes Sam Grundy who is not as one might expect identified as a ‘bookie’. Instead we are given first a view of his character as ‘not unpleasant’, which, given his ‘bargain’ with Sally and reputation, comes as something of a surprise. The comment on his ‘stoutness’ implies that in contrast to Harry and Helen he is well-fed, while also hinting that stoutness may impede people from being pleasant! That he has ‘the confidence of one who lives on his wits’ suggests his intelligence, but may also imply dishonesty. My feeling is that these descriptions are highly gendered, while also not consistently giving much insight at all into the inner psychological and moral dispositions which I would call ‘character’. Of course, these character descriptions are intended only to give a starting point, but I think they are much less effective than the ‘Story Summary in using words to maximum advantage. Nevertheless, overall the 1934 ‘Story Summary’, Synopsis of Scenes’ and ‘Description of Characters’ are serious, helpful, and accurate – and of course the ways in which they raise some queries about what happens in Love on the Dole, to whom and where, is in itself useful.

2. Some More Recent Plot Summaries on the Web

The same positive praise cannot always be applied to some other plot summaries and descriptions out there on the web, and several of these need to be used with caution since they often have features which are inaccurate and thus inadequate for any serious use. This is not to say that everything out there is of no benefit. I have so far found a Good Reads brief plot summary, the Wikipedia entries for the novel, play and film, and a BFI (British Film Institute) synopsis for the film. It is of course good to see contemporary readers reading and responding to Love on the Dole on the Good Reads website, but the brief plot summary there does provide an object lesson in how selecting one element in a plot for undue emphasis can give a misleading impression (as does just making things up which are not in the plot of the text itself):

In Hanky Park, near Salford, Harry and Sally Hardcastle grow up in a society preoccupied with grinding poverty, exploited by bookies and pawnbrokers, bullied by petty officials and living in constant fear of the dole queue and the Means Test. His love affair with a local girl ends in a shotgun marriage, and, disowned by his family, Harry is tempted by crime. Sally, meanwhile, falls in love with Larry Meath, a self-educated Marxist. But Larry is a sick man and there are other more powerful rivals for her affection (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2438254.Love_on_the_Dole).

The first sentence is fine as a summary of some of the novel’s main concerns, if not really a plot summary, but the second and third sentences seem to me misleading, and I have underlined the phrases which cause me concern. There is some attention paid to the temptations of crime for those on the dole in the novel and the film (but not the play in either the Cape or Samuel French edition). This reflects a concern of the time that unemployment and the poverty resulting from being on the dole could tempt young men in particular into crime. The historian Stephen Constantine is not on the whole convinced that there is a clear objective correlation between a growth in unemployment and an increase in crime in the interwar period, but the right-wing popular press sometimes asserted one, as did the Daily Mail in 1926 with a report headlined: ‘The Deadly Dole: From Idleness to Crime’. (2)

In the novel when the former apprentice Bill Simmons offers his peers the chance to come and steal boxes of cigarettes from a warehouse, Harry is not even tempted and with two other lads immediately rejects the invitation:

To Harry’s relief Sam Hardie also declined. He, Harry, had no palate for such an adventure and was glad to be able to ally himself to Jack and Sam in their refusals (p.175).

There is a similar moment in the film. The Good Reads summary gives the impression that this minor theme in the novel is a major one with plot consequences for Harry to play out in the narrative, which is just not the case. The problem with the sentence about Sally is that it is completely inaccurate. Sally does not give up on Larry because he is sick, but because he is dead – and she is very clear then that she will never love anyone instead. There are no rivals for her affections before or after Larry’s death in the Means Test protest- certainly not the powerful Sam Grundy, with whom her relationship is post-traumatic, desperate, and wholly transactional for the benefit of her brother and father and mother.

Wikipedia has entries with plot description elements for the novel and the film, but not for the play. The novel plot summary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_on_the_Dole) is mainly reasonably reliable, but has two odd elements which need to be filtered out: one is, I think, someone’s idea of a joke, and the other a complete misreading of the text. The ‘joke’ edit runs thus:

The 17-year-old Harry Hardcastle of Mansfield, studying in Lincoln, starts the novel working in a pawn shop, but is attracted to the glamour of working in the engineering factory Marlows Ltd. 

Of course, Harry Hardcastle in the novel has never left Hanky Park (until he wins his ‘thripeeny triple’ bet with Sam Grundy and has his holiday with Helen in Blackpool) and has never been to Mansfield nor studied anywhere beyond his apprenticeship at Marlowe’s Works, let alone Lincoln. Is there a student out there, with a friend called Harry Hardcastle from Mansfield, who has whiled away a few minutes making this joke Wikipedia edit? The second dubious element is subtler and looks as if it might make sense, but does not, as applied to Sally:

 Sally feels unable to compete with Meath’s socialist intellectualism, highlighting not only the economic but also the intellectual poverty of the local working-class community.

It is true that Sally in the novel reflects on her ramble with Larry and the local Labour Party members who also go walking, and thinks about her and their class status:

Then, remembering the kind of people comprising yesterday’s company, she found that she was not so sure of herself. She felt herself to be greatly inferior to them all. It was as though they belonged to a different species. Somehow she identified them as people who could afford pianos and who could play them; people who lived in houses where there were baths. Their conversation, too, was incomprehensible. When the talk turned on music they referred to something called the ‘Halley’ where something happened by the names of ‘Baytoven’ and ‘Bark’ and other strange names. They spoke politics, arguing hotly about somebody named Marks. Yes, they were of a class apart, to whom the mention of a pawn shop, she supposed, would be incomprehensible. Suppose they saw her home; her bedroom! She blushed, ashamed (p.97).

Clearly she does feel that these are middle-class socialists, and thus outsiders to Hanky Park, and she shares neither their economic resources nor their range of cultural reference, the latter of which Larry though an inhabitant of Hanky Park equally clearly does. However, that does not have the plot consequences suggested by the Wikipedia entry: Sally does not try to compete with Larry and is not deterred from a relationship with him by any feeling of inferiority. Indeed, she states this plainly in the paragraph following the one above, asserting Larry’s superiority to these middle-class socialists and her general equality with him in terms of social status:

Yet, why need she be ashamed? She pouted. Suppose they saw Larry’s home? His was no different from her own; it was in the same street, anyway. And, from the respect his opinions had been paid by those who had listened, she had concluded that, of them all, he was the superior. Besides, since he was in no hurry to disavow her on account of her home life, why need she worry about what others might think about it? She almost became indignant with herself for entertaining such thoughts (p.97)

Those glitches apart this not too bad a description of the novel, though I still think the 1934 material above is overall more helpful. Of course I know that Wikipedia sifts the valuable from the less valuable through its collective editing process, so I will keep an eye on this entry and adjust my commentary in the light of potential amendments.

The Wikipedia plot description (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_on_the_Dole_(film)) for the film is laconic but accurate:

It is 1930, at the height of the Great Depression. The Hardcastle family live in Hankey Park, part of Salford. Mr Hardcastle is a coalminer; his son, Harry, is an apprentice at a local engineering firm and Sally, his daughter, works at a cotton mill.

Mr Hardcastle’s mine is put on a three-day week.

Harry wins £22 on his winning thruppence treble bet. Bookmaker Sam Grundy pays up without any trouble. At his father’s suggestion, he takes his girlfriend Helen to the seaside resort of Blackpool on a holiday.

Harry becomes unemployed when his apprenticeship ends. The family’s plight is made worse by reductions in means tested unemployment  (the dole), whilst Helen’s unexpected pregnancy causes further tensions.

Sally is courted by factory worker and Labour Party activist Larry Meath but their marriage plans are put in doubt when Larry loses his job. Larry is fatally injured when he tries to restore calm in a clash with the police during an unemployment march. Sally, reluctantly at first, becomes Grundy’s mistress to help keep her unemployed family.

Like the 1934 Story Summary, this concentrates solely on the Hardcastle family, omitting any reference to the chorus of Mrs Jike, Mrs Dorbell, and Mrs Bull, who it is true mainly contribute to the atmosphere of Hanky Park rather than to plot development, in line with their partly choric function of providing commentary on events. Nevertheless, their complete absence loses a key element of the narrative.

The same selectivity is true of the BFI (British Film Institute) synopsis of the film plot (http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/485682/synopsis.html), though it is mainly reliable:

Opening statement: “This film recalls one of the darker pages of our industrial history. On the outskirts of every City, there is a region of darkness and poverty where men and women for ever strive to live decently in face of overwhelming odds never doubting that the clouds of depression will one day be lifted. Such a district was Hanky Park in March, 1930.”

Salford, 1930. Mr Hardcastle is a miner, his son, Harry, is an apprentice at the local engineering firm and Sally, his daughter, works at the cotton mills. The mine is put on three-day working. Sally meets up with Larry Meath and is invited to a Young Labour ramble in the countryside. They fall in love.

Harry wins £22 on a horse bet. When he collects his winnings from Sam Grundy, the local bookie, Grundy indicates his interest in Sally. Harry takes Helen, his girlfriend, to Blackpool for a holiday.

When his apprenticeship at a local factory ends, Harry finds himself unemployed – the owners preferring to have a regular turn-over of cheap apprentices than to pay full wages. Mr Hardcastle, too, is laid off. When Helen becomes pregnant, she and Harry have to go into lodgings in a single room, after Mr Hardcastle refuses to let them stay at home. Larry also loses his job and his and Sally’s marriage is put in doubt.

With increasing unemployment and a reduction of the dole through the hated means test, the unemployed become angry. A demonstration takes place and Larry is fatally injured in a clash between police and demonstrators when he tries to restore calm. Sally borrows money from Grundy in order to pay for Larry’s funeral. Grundy proposes she become his ‘housekeeper’. She refuses, but later overhears the predicament of her brother – he is soon to be made homeless after the birth of his child. In spite of the fact that she will be viewed as a ‘kept woman’ or ‘on the loose’, she compromises her morals in order to assist her family. Her parents are shocked and ashamed, but with Grundy’s assistance she brings money and jobs to her family.

End statement [added in 1947]. “Our working men and women have responded magnificently to any and every call made upon them. Their reward must be a new Britain. Never again must the unemployed become the forgotten men of the peace”.

The only thing I would take issue with here is not part of the plot summary proper, but the reference to the closing caption of the film, written and signed by the wartime Labour / Co-operative First Lord of the Admiralty A.V. Alexander. Though there has been a partially-established view that this statement was a post-war addition to the film of Love on the Dole for its 1948 re-release, this was simply not the case (politically interesting though that would have been as a kind of adoption of the film by the post-1945 Labour government). (3) Reviews from the earlier nineteen-forties make it clear that this concluding caption was there already in the 1941 release of the film. Thus the Burnley Express noted that ‘ the note of optimism and the promise of better things, with which the film ends, will be appreciated by all’ (17 September 1941, p. 2) while reviews and letters about the release of the film in Australia in 1942 also clearly refer to the closing caption. The Newcastle Sun quotes and approves of the caption’s promise that the unemployed will never again become ‘the forgotten men and women of peace’, while in a letter to the press the Archbishop of Sydney also makes clear that the closing statement by Alexander was there and had an impact on his viewing of the film in 1945: ‘the caption at the end of this picture points us to a moral no less than social duty . . . to strive . . . to eliminate the possibility of unemployment’ (The South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus, 18 October 1945, p.4). See the very end of this article for a screenshot of the caption.

Though I did not intend this when I started this article, I feel having critiqued other plot summaries and character descriptions that I should put my writing where my mouth is, and offer what I hope are a plot summary of novel, play and film which may at least stand equal with the Samuel French 1934 offerings and perhaps more than that with most of what is offered on the web. I will not offer an independent synopsis of scenes because I do not think there is further value to add in that respect, though I will just show the version of the scenes with titles which were not in the programme for the Garrick London production in 1935, nor in the Samuel French acting edition of 1934, but were added to the Cape edition of 1935. Here then is the Cape Scene synopsis with its atmospheric titles:

3. My Try at Plot Summaries (2024)

3.1. The Novel

The novel opens with an authorial narrator’s overview of the history and characteristics of the very poor district of Salford around Hankinson Street, known colloquially and ironically as Hanky Park, since it is now as un-park-like as possible, wholly industrial, and as polluted, dirty, dreary and depressed as it could be. The viewpoint then zooms in on the neighbourhood on one rainy dawn, showing first a policeman on his beat and then Blind Joe Riley waking people up for work by tapping on their bedroom windows with a bunch of wires on a long pole (nobody can afford an alarm clock). The narrative then moves focus to number 17 North Street, where the hardly awake Mrs Hardcastle begins to light the fire in her cold house and to wake her two children, Sally and Harry, who must be in time for work or be fined for lateness. They eventually appear downstairs, and wash in the kitchen sink. Next the focus shifts to outdoors with men and women going to work. Harry should be going to his boy-clerk’s job at the pawnshop (which he hates) but finds himself drawn to the great Marlowe’s Works, which employs many of the male workers of Hanky Park. When the whistle blows Harry finds himself carried through the Work’s gates by the mass of men needing to clock on and partly by accident gets taken on as a new apprenticeship, fulfilling his dream of escaping the pawnshop and getting a proper ‘man’s job’.

Harry then has to go to Price’s Pawnshop to do his last day of dreaded work there, before what he thinks of as his great escape. We are shown something of how the pawnshop works as a queue of women wait outside before opening time, desperate to pawn their goods in order to raise enough money to buy some food for their families. The reader is introduced to Mrs Dorbell and Mrs Nattle, who are queuing to pawn goods not for themselves but for neighbours who are too busy with housework or too embarrassed to come themselves -of course the two businesswomen charge a small commission for their work. In his lunchbreak Harry meets Helen Hawkins and tells her has got an apprenticeship at Marlowe’s works! Next day (in unredeemed overalls his mother has bought from the pawnbrokers) Harry clocks on at Marlowe’s as an engineering apprentice. At the weekend he feels the ‘intoxication’ of having some money to spend and buys some cigarettes and places a bet. Since it is pay-day, clothing club collectors appear at Hanky Park doors, attempting (largely unsuccessfully) to collect some payments. The young Harry is disgusted by the sexual chatter of some of his fellow apprentices, and meeting Helen Hardcastle thinks about their relationship and whether he might prefer her company to that of his male friends and acquaintance.

Harry enjoys his apprenticeship for a period but notes that he is not learning much – until one day he is given a machine of his own to operate – a lathe (though he notices that the generation of apprentices before his have suddenly and silently disappeared – they simply do not turn up at work anymore). Soon a younger generation of apprentices show up and Harry confidently sends them on errands and looks down on them, as his predecessors did on him. However, time seems to Harry to speed up and soon two years have gone by. Worse, he no longer gets frequent ‘tips’ for errands from the apprentices above him, but instead has to give a few precious coins to those below him. What should be a narrative of progress begins to look to Harry like a story of decline. He depends more and more on Helen Hawkins and the dreams they exchange of adulthood, happiness, their own home, and independence. Helen already works in a textile mill, but as soon as Harry’ seven year apprenticeship is up he will be a qualified engineer, and paid a man’s full wage. Then everything they have dreamed of will be in their grasp. Talking with Helen on Dawney Hill (one of the few scraps of green countryside left in Salford, where couples can find some dangerous privacy), Harry agrees that he loves her, but wants to be able to spend some money on her, and ideally for them to go away on holiday together.

In the next chapter Sally is feeling that something is lacking in her life, though she is not quite sure what. She would like some privacy to be alone and think but that is something not to be had in the Hardcastle house, and though she has lost interest in this way of spending her time goes out to go dancing with Ned Narkey. She meets him outside a pub where he is rude and bullying, claiming she is late and that she would rather listen to the political speaker on the street-corner, who is in fact Larry Meath. Actually, she was not listening to Larry, but this puts the idea in her mind and she does begin to listen, while dismissing the uncouth Ned Narkey for good. Larry gives his big set-piece speech about the need to fight for change through supporting Labour. At the end of it, he and Sally start talking and he invites her to go on a Labour Party ramble on the moors next Sunday. She is delighted to be asked.

Meanwhile, Harry becomes understandably obsessed with what is his very real need for a suit – he is still wearing his school clothes which are ragged and too small. He feels in too disgraceful a state to go out with Helen on a Sunday. This leads to an argument with his father who says they cannot afford to buy one, not to keep up weekly payments to a so-called ‘clothing club’. Though angry, Mr Hardcastle also is ashamed that he cannot really keep his family even properly clothed, and in the end gives in to Harry’s desperate demands. Sally tells her mother about how much she enjoyed her Sunday ramble with Larry, and that she thinks he is serious about her. Mrs Hardcastle who is starved of entertainment suggests they go to their neighbour Mrs Jike who is doing a fortune-telling session today, but Sally is very reluctant. Both a séance and a fortune-telling session follow, but Sally is upset by the way her alleged future is told using scraps of gossip abut her and Larry and she walks out. Next we learn more of Mrs Nattle’s business schemes, which include money-lending, pawning for commission, selling ‘nips’ of whisky without a licence, and collecting payments on clothing-club goods.

The following chapter is wholly given over to Harry’s wondrous win on a ‘thripenny treble’ bet with San Grundy, which bring him the unbelievable sum of twenty-two pounds. Sam Grundy makes sure the whole neighbourhood sees him pay Harry his winnings note by note, advertising the bookie’s honesty in paying up and offering a fantasy of such a success to those who are already addicted to their weekly ration of gambling hope. Grundy also tells Harry to give Sally a few of the pound-notes with his compliments – which leads in turn to Ned Narkey threatening Sam if he shows any interest in Sally, who has in the past gone out with Ned.

Harry does give a share to Sally and his parents and then decides to spend the remainder of his winnings on a once in a lifetime holiday to Blackpool with Helen Hawkins. What for many people in Britain at this time would have been just ordinary life is for Harry and Helen the utmost unimaginable luxury – a room and bed each of their own in the boarding-house and some spare money to spend on their own entertainment for a whole workless week. The week rushes by and the prospect of returning to Hanky Park is depressing – but they realise that once Harry has completed his apprenticeship and moved on to an engineer’s wages they could get married and rent a house and thus recreate at least some of the liberation they felt on their holiday.

The couple return to Hanky Park, still with ten shillings of Harry’s winnings, and start window-shopping for furniture for the house they hope to rent. However, in the Hardcastle home things seem worse than when they left – there is clearly even less money to go round. At Marlowe’s Harry overhears Ned Narkey threatening Larry Meath again, if he dares go out with Sally. Larry cannot help mentioning this to Sally after work and she expresses her dislike of being harassed by both Ned and Sam Grundy. The rest of this chapter is set almost wholly in Sally’s mind as she thinks about Larry and his wish to delay marriage until they can really afford it. They meet, each full of their desire to marry and the formidable obstacles to this end, but forget about it for a while until Larry realises that there is nowhere in Hanky Park where they can court in pleasant surroundings.

Harry’s apprenticeship ends, together with those of all his peers, but far from being promoted as qualified engineers on men’s wages, they are all sacked by Marlowe’s (in flagrant breech of agreements with Trade Unions). Harry and all his mates go to sign on for the dole at the Employment Exchange, finding a long queue at the ‘New Claims’ desk (p. 155). Once registered Harry begins his long tramp round Salford looking for a vacancy – but there are none. Next we again see Mrs Nattle at work – she is doing well out of increased poverty and unemployment – as Mrs Hardcastle has to confess that she can’t make this week;s payment on Harry’s suit because Harry is still out of work and so is Mr Hardcastle now the pit has closed completely. However, Mrs Nattle still extorts a shilling from her. Sally meanwhile helps Kate Malloy who is pregnant by Ned Narkey, confronting Ned in a pub and telling him he must pay maintenance. Narky hits Sally viciously, but thinks it will be cheaper to marry Kate than to have to pay an ‘affiliation order’ (p. 167). Self-deceived by a potentially fatal fantasy of romance Kate wants Ned to marry her though it is obvious she will immediately become a victim of his domestic violence and complete neglect.

We now see Harry after months of being out of work – he has nothing to do and nothing to spend and knows he is losing physical fitness through lack of activity. He still tramps round seeking jobs with no success, but increasingly he spends the days on street corners with the other jobless lads because he has nowhere else to go. One of the lads, Bill Simmons, offers them all the chance to help him steal a load of cigarettes, but only Tom Hare says yes – Jack Lindsay and Harry think it’ll end in prison. Harry cannot help thinking that lack of money has killed the romantic feelings between him and Helen – they find it difficult to talk about anything but a sense of shared misery now that their plans to marry are impossible without the means. Moreover, Helen eventually tells Harry that she is pregnant, and both feel that there is nothing to hope for.

Outside Marlowe’s work at the lunch hour a discussion/ argument about politics develops. At first, it is a rough and ready affair between Ted Munter, the time-check clerk, and a friend of Larry’s and Labour Party activist, Jim. When Jim gets out of his depth with Ted’s repeated assertion that we could not do without capital (‘capickle’), he fetches Larry to take up the argument. Larry tries carefully to explain what capital really is with diagrams chalked on a brick wall, and its dependence on labour power actually to produce commodities. Larry argues that excessive profit-making is what is wrong with capitalism and this results from the under-payment of labour. Ted will not listen and feels resentment and that he has been out down. He vows revenge on these ‘bloody Bolshies’ (p.184) and informs the management that Larry is a political subversive, as well as planning to tell Sam Grundy about Larry in case it helps Sam with his pursuit of Sally. Ironically, at this point the British government blocks a big order to Marlowe’s from the USSR, so that most of the men in the machine-shops are laid off. These include Larry and Jim, as well as Ned Narkey. Ned is quickly refused credit at the pub, and running into Sam Grundy he wants to kick his brains out (as he had done to ‘German boys’ in trench raids when he was a sergeant-major), partly out of envy of Sam’s prosperity and partly because of what he thinks is their rivalry for Sally. Sam sensing danger and fearing the massive bulk of Narkey has an instant idea to get out of this spot and longer term make Ned indebted to him. He says he can easily get this violent thug a job in the city police-force. Sam buys Ned a couple of drinks to celebrate his recruitment to the forces of law and order.

Larry has to tell Sally that he is now unemployed and that they must delay their wedding plans. She argues that they could still marry on his dole and her wages from the mill, but he cannot be persuaded to get married to her on such a basis. Things get worse for the unemployed men: Harry and many others learn that they will get no more dole: this is a result of National Government economies brought about by decisions to cut transitional benefit if claimants failed a Means Test. It is judged by the Public Assistance Committee that since Sally is working and his father is in receipt of the dole, Harry does not need the support of public funds; in other cases described in the novel grown men are knocked off the dole because they have working sons living at home. This seems the last straw and the angry men begin to gather outside the Labour Exchange in large groups. They soon find men not from Hanky Park giving speeches, and also note plain-clothes and uniformed police in large numbers. There is to be a protest march to the Town Hall, and Larry has been involved in organising this – but the outside speakers and he are not in agreement about how the march should be conducted. The marchers mainly follow Larry’s instructions but he feels dizzy and weak – he is suffering from a cough. The marchers had planned to go past the Labour Exchange, but a police cordon prevents them – nevertheless part of the column breaks through the police line for a few moments. More and more people join the march so that the demonstration is enormous by the time it comes to the square outside the Town Hall (Bexley Square). This is a square where election results are announced and which thus has a recognised identity as a political space. The marchers (including Larry and the rival outside organisers) are therefore amazed when a senior police officer forbids them to enter the square. This is the last straw: fighting breaks out between marchers and the police (fulfilling the wishes of new Constable Ned Narkey that there will be a good fight). Harry suddenly sees a policeman (not Ned, surprisingly) hit Larry (who has not joined in with the fighting) twice on the back and once on the head. The collapsed Larry is then dragged off under arrest to the police station.

Harry runs home to tell Sally, but there is some confusion because he finds a crowd on North Street not because of the protest march but because Bill Simmons and Tom Hare have just been arrested for stealing cigarettes from a shop. Harry says he had nothing to do with that, but that Larry has been hit and arrested without any cause. The women, including Sally, set off for the police station to see if they bail out their menfolk. However the next chapter cuts to the Infirmary where Larry has clearly been transferred. Sally is at his bedside but there seems little hope that he will survive and it seems from his laboured breathing to be pneumonia rather than the blow to his head which will finish him. Mrs Hardcastle and Sally can only wait for him to die, which he does without speaking (unlike in the film). The next chapter sees Mrs Bull. Mrs Jike, Mrs Nattle and Mrs Dorbell watching the house-clearers shifting Larry’s belongings onto their cart and lamenting how little has been paid for them – only five quid for the lot. They are even more shocked though when Sally tells them Larry is to be cremated rather than buried. Also, the older women are offended (with the exception of Mrs Bull) and leave when Sally adds that Larry had no burial insurance because he didn’t believe in it. Sally has a problem though – she needs five pounds to pay for Larry’s cremation. Mrs Bull suggests she borrow it from Sam Grundy, but Sally fears he will want something in return.

Having no alternative, Sally goes to find Sam Grundy in the pub and asks him to lend five pounds for Larry’s cremation, but says she will repay it when the mill resumes full-time work. He asks her to go for a drive with him in his car, but she refuses. Nevertheless, Mrs Dorbell sees him hand over the five pound notes to Sally – and she forms her own malicious interpretation. Meanwhile Harry tells his father about Helen’s pregnancy and asks if they can live with at the Hardcastle house in North Street, both sharing the only available bedroom with Sally. Mr Hardcastle is furious that Harry has made things even worse and throws him out of the house. Harry thinks that since both of them are out of work his father has little right to be so superior. However, he and Helen are effectively destitute: no home and almost no money coming in. Harry thinks in desperation that the Workhouse might help them, if they quickly get married at the Registrar’s Office. However, then they have no idea how the remnants of this ancient system work, and have to ask Mrs Dorbell for her advice – but as usual she expects to get a cut from any funds or help they are given, and rents her spare room to them, which might look like a kindness, but is mainly an investment in their workhouse relief. Meeting his peers on the street corner, Harry learns that they also have been thrown out by their parents when their dole has been stopped – one has joined the army, one is sleeping at a ‘doss-house’ or worse a ‘tuppenny leanover’ (pp. 231-2). The only two doing well are those who were sent to prison for stealing cigarettes: the Probation Officer and Court Missionary have found them jobs.

Soon Helen goes into labour and Mrs Bull comes to attend her. She tells Harry to go away and he sets out to collect Helen’s wages from her mill. He is very naturally very anxious, but on his way notices Sam Grundy talking again to Sally and trying to persuade her to come for a drive in his car. In fact, Sally seeing Helen’s safely delivered baby girl and despairing over her own future without Larry has decided to take Grundy’s offer. The next chapter jumps on a little in time and focuses on Mrs Hardcastle’s feelings of shame about Sally’s behaviour , and even more so her fears of the reactions of her husband. Mrs Bull though says Sally would be a fool not to take what Sam will give her and get out of Hanky Park while she can, now that Larry is gone. Mr Hardcastle comes home and reacts exactly as his wife expects: he hits Sally and tells her to get out of the house. He regrets it though, taking in Sally’s reproach that she will not repeat the life of her mother, or worse, that of Mrs Cranford. He desperately thinks that he has done all he can for his family but that it has been completely inadequate: there have never been enough wages even to support his wife, let alone two children. Mrs Bull has offered Sally refuge and the next day Mr Hardcastle goes to apologise to his daughter: she hands hands him two letters from Sam Grundy which will get him and Harry jobs in the local bus company (his ‘influence’ covers transport as well as the police force). Father and son feel it a dream come true – they spare little thought for how Sally has brought this miracle about. Later Harry sees his friend Jack Lindsay, standing helpless and poorly dressed on a street corner. He has no one to pull strings for him; Harry cannot face speaking to Jack and slips away. Harry and his father may have found a happy ending through the corruption of Grundy and the exploitation of Sally, but it is not a mass solution. Jack Lindsay is ‘an anonymous unit of an army of three millions for whom there was no tomorrow (p.255).

The final section of the novel repeats the opening: it is 5.30 am and a policeman is completing his night-time beat (though it is now the vicious Ned Narkey, who kicks a cat in his path), while Old Joe Riley, the knocker-up gets people up for work by tapping on their windows with his knocking-up pole. Despite the detailed narratives of a few individuals, nothing at all has changed or progressed in Hanky Park in 1933.

3.2. The Play

Act I.

The play (in the Jonathan Cape edition) opens in the ‘kitchen living room’ of the Hardcastle’s house on North Street, where Sally Hardcastle is ironing. However, the spoken element in this scene is a political speech heard through the open street door and is spoken by the Labour Party activist Larry Meath, whom we can also see through the kitchen-window. We also hear a number of interjections from listeners, some critical, some more supportive. The speech ends and the crowd evidently disperses, while Larry ses Sally and talks to her (at the doorway perhaps?). She says she knows nothing about politics, but likes the way he talks. There is clearly a mutual interest. They have been walking on the moors once before with the Labour Party Rambling Club and Larry suggests Sally should come again. She is keen, and there is some flirting between them about whether she needs to wear hiking shorts. Then there is a more serious conversation about whether there is any way out of Hanky Park or any way of alerting its people, always on the edge of poverty, to the current worsening threats of the Depression and increased unemployment. By the end of this part of the act the couple have agreed they should get married and continue fighting together to get something better for the people of Hanky Park.

Sally’s young brother Harry enters through the street door, and Larry asks him if he is still enjoying his apprenticeship at Marlowe’s works. Harry is enthusiastic talking of the wonderful machines such as screw-cutting lathes which do almost everything for you automatically. Larry suggests that might be an issue – when the machines are perfected, no engineers will be needed at all. Harry sees this, but is still entranced by the power of machines. Larry leaves and Sally teases Harry about whether he is going out with Helen Hawkins, which leads to his biggest anxiety – that apart from his work-overalls he has no adult clothes and is still wearing his school clothes underneath. He really is not fit to be seen outside the house, let alone fit to be seen by Helen. He wonders if now is a good time to ask his parent if he can have a suit from the Clothing Club, but Sally says that things being as they are with the combined household income, she can’t see how they could afford that, though Harry does need it. Harry hopes his weekly ‘thripenny triple’ bet with Sam Grundy will come home one day – then he’ll buy himself a suit and Sal the hiking shorts she wants.

Mrs Hardcastle returns home to say that she has invited Mrs Jike, Mrs Dorbell and Mrs Bull to do some fortune-telling and talk to the spirits. Sally says it is all nonsense, but her mother says nonsense is a comfort sometimes. Harry says he is going out if that lot are coming round. Sally alone with her mother for a few minutes tells her how much she liked her ramble with Larry on the moors and of her ambition to get some shorts (which rather shocks Mrs Hardcastle). Mr Hardcastle comes home unexpectedly early and is not in a good mood. Nevertheless the desperate Harry asks if he have a new suit from the Good Samaritan Clothing Company. After an argument, Mr Hardcastle agrees that Harry must have a suit. He tells his wife he’ll give up his tobacco – but she says (no doubt correctly) that this will make him very narky. Harry goes straight out to pursue his suit, while Mr Hardcastle goes out to escape the fortune-telling. The three older women arrive at the Hardcastle’s and soon set a séance up, over which Mrs Jike presides. Mrs Dorbell wants the spirits to tell her if she’ll win in the Irish Sweepstake if she buys a ticket. The spirits assure her she will not. Mrs Bull wants to tell Jack Tuttle that when she was laying him out she found half-a-crown in his pocket and kept it, but wouldn’t like him to think she had pinched it. Mrs Jike thinks Mrs Bull is being too familiar with the spirits, and anyway at this point Sally says it is all nonsense – at which point the sprits, says Mrs Jike, depart. Nevertheless, Mrs Hardcastle begs Mrs Jike to tell Sally’s fortune in the tea-leaves. Mrs Jike ‘foresees’ a thin dark man and a fat man and lots of money and definite danger. Sally is angry that gossip about her is being recycled and forcefully asks the three neighbours to leave. Her mother is upset at her behaviour but Sally tells her that thinking of the three old women as her friends is a sign of how desperate they are, of what Hanky Park does to all women, sending them down ‘t’same road – poverty and pawnshop an’ dirt an’ drink’ (p.49). Sally asserts that she is not going that way, that she and Larry will fight against it.

Act II.

Scene 1.

This scene is set in an alley in Hanky Park (it has no equivalent in either the novel or the film versions). A policeman on his beat has a fairly brief conversation with a man he clearly knows – its is Charlie, an associate of Sam Grundy. Charlie’s theme is that a bobby does nothing to earn his pay, but stand around. The Constable says he does some thinking, and often thinks everyone in Hanky Park is like a maggot in a tin of fishing bait – they don’t know how they got there not how they’ll get out. The two exit and then Harry and Helen enter. They talk about whether they are walking out together – Harry agrees they are but (unfeelingly) says he doesn’t want the other apprentices to know because they will tease him. Harry says how much he hates not having any spare money to spend on Helen, but explains to her his weekly ‘thrippeny treble’ bet with Sam Grund and thinks that he’d put things right if it came good.

The stage darkens (and presumably, though there is no stage direction to this effect, Helen and Harry exit?). Lights come on and various unnamed characters come on, all focussed on something in a newspaper. Then Mrs Dorbell and Mrs Bull enter and their dialogue is audible: the papers are reporting that an apprentice called Harry has, for the first time ever, won the thripenny triple. Mrs Dorbell is doubtful that Sam Grundy will pay up the full amount, as are others, and even Harry is nervous. Sam soon appears and with much and intentional drama carefully pays out Harry’s winnings in public – the unbelievable sum in Hanky Park of twenty-two pounds. As Sam repeatedly says until Harry and the gathering crowd echo him: ‘Sky’s the limit wi’ honest Sam Grundy'(p.64). Harry tells Sally she shall have her shorts, while she encourages Harry to spend his winnings on a once in a lifetime holiday with Helen in Blackpool. Harry goes off to see Helen, and at that point Sam Grundy comes to talk to Sally, He wants to giver her some pound-notes but she refuses – she says he has ‘helped’ too many girls already. She leaves and Sam asks Charlie to give the check-in clerk at Marlowe’s a message that Larry Meath is no friend to Sam.. The scene ends with the constable from the opening saying good afternoon to Sam – they are affable and clearly familiar even though Grundy is an illegal street bookie.

Scene 2.

This is the only scene in the play set outside Hanky Park – up high on the surrounding moors, which is represented in the play by a large stage rock. Larry has walked here before, but it is utterly new to Sally. She has never been anywhere like this: ‘Isn’t it grand being alone? Ah’ve never seen so much loneliness in all me life’ (p.74). They talk of beauty and of having got used to having none in Hanky Park, and in a very unusual moment (not found in either the play or the film) ally asks Larry of he believes in God. She says she could believe up here, but Larry says he cannot see any sign of God in Hanky Park, at least. They talk of getting out of Hanky Park, and of getting married – but at this point Larry has to Tell Sally of something which has been in his mind throughout their wonderful escape onto the moors: he has been sacked (partly due to general conditions but no doubt partly also to Sam Grundy and Ted Munter’s machinations). The light begins to fade as dusk approaches and Sally says she feel frightened now (and this of course suggests a darkening in the events of the rest of the play).

Act III.

Scene 1.

We are back in the kitchen of the Hardcastle’s house. It is a year later. Mrs Hardcastle is present as are Mrs Bull and Mrs Dorbell. More surprisingly, so is Sam Grundy. He has had the brazen impudence to ask Sally’s other’s permission to approach Sally – as if he were a respectable Victorian suitor, rather than a married man looking for a new mistress. Mrs Dorbell gives her advice, which is based solely on monetary considerations – anything which can be sold should be sold: ‘it’s a fair offer and your girl’s a fool if she won’t take it’ (p.86). Mrs Bull later tells Mrs Hardcastle that Sam has offered Mrs Dorbell a commission if he is successful. However, Mrs Hardcastle warns Grundy that her husband will kill him if he comes in and finds him there. Grundy immediately departs, while Mrs Dorbell continues to lament this terrible lost opportunity! Harry comes in and tells his mother, and then his father that he must marry Helen Hawkins, and could they for a while both share Sally bedroom? Both parent reject this (after all, Sally is now the only one bringing any income into the household) and Mr Hardcastle is furious with Harry for making things even worse. He and Harry argue about Helen and Harry leaves the house for ever.

The march against the Means Test is beginning to assemble and Larry comes to ask Mr Hardcastle if he’ll come and help – Larry is worried that some of the organisers of the march are going to encourage defiance of the police, who have closed some routes to the town hall. Larry fears that some of the marchers will lose their heads and that fighting will break out. He also has a bad cough, and Sally would like him not to go for that reason. In the stage version the whole march scene has to be reported from off-stage – and indeed at the Hardcastle’s open kitchen-door. Sally has a conversation with Helen who enters abut her situation – and helps her by lending enough money for her and Harry to buy a wedding licence. If they are married they might have more chance of a room or at least of workhouse outdoor relief. Helen exits, but Mrs Bull and Mrs Hardcastle enter. Mrs Bull laments the large size of the aggressive policemen and observes that fighting has broken out. A constable knocks on the door – he is not (in this case?) agressive but tell Sally she must is wanted to go with the ambulance. Unlike in the novel and the film where Sally goes to the Infirmary, here Mr Hardcastle quickly reports from that Larry has already dies of his injuries. As the Scene ends, Sally notes that all her dreams are over now.

Scene 2.

The Hardcastle kitchen, six months later. The scene opens with a far from cheerful piece of music. Mrs Hardcastle weeps and wails, while Mrs Bull and Mrs Dorbell and Mrs Jike say Sally could have done worse. Clearly the news that she has taken up Sam Grundy’s offer has broken. Mrs Hardcastle is still frightened that her husband will murder Sally. Mrs Bull says (which I always find unconvincing) that with Sally’s character, it will do her no haem, and that otherwise she might have committed suicide as some others in Hanky Park have done recently. Sally arrives, saying she has ordered a taxi to take her to the railway station, and then goes up to her room to pack her few things. Mrs Hardcastle is ashamed to think of this public spectacle (taxis never come to Hanky Park). Mr Hardcastle returns home and the three older women at once leave. Mr Hardcastle wants to know if what has been hearing about Sally is true. She comes down and confirms the story – but points out to him staying in Hanky Park, becoming worn to the bone by poverty like her mother, or living on workhouse relief like Harry with his wife and child, would have been even worse choices. Her father strikes Sally and knocks here down. Her mother tells him to stop. At this point Harry enters to day that Helen is taken bad. Sally gives him some pound-notes, and to her mother for Mrs Hardcastle two envelopes, one for her father, one for Harry. Through Sam’s corrupt influence, they will get them each a job with the ‘East City Bus Offices’ (p. 124). Sally ends the play be telling her father life just isn’t like it used to be: respectability is not something they can afford any longer. He ends the play with his famous last lines by noting and appealing against his own failure but also his lack of choice: ‘Oh, God, Ah’ve done me best! Ah’ve done me best, haven’t Ah?’.

3.3. The Film.

The film opens with an aerial dawn overview of Hanky Park which is introduced and characterised by some ten tall smoking chimneys distributed to the right and left. Below these are mills and in te centre a church with its steeple (a feature of the area never again referred to in the the rest of the movie). Through a semi-opaque smog, the high moors can dimly be seen in the distance. Then the camera zooms in and down to ground level, coming to rest on the row of dimly-lit back-yards at the rear of North Street, of which the central one belongs to the Hardcastle household. Mrs Hardcastle is seen scooping up a small shovelful of coal, and then a cut to the interior shows her taking it into her kitchen to throw into the fire-place and range. She lights the fire and holds a newspaper in front of it to heat up before adding it to the flames. The camera zooms in and we briefly see the headlines against the firelight: ‘Trade Boom is Coming’ before the paper bursts into flames and is added to the fire.

Mr Hardcastle enters from outside, his dirty clothes showing that he has come home from work at the pit. He greets Mrs Hardcastle and she him (they call each other ‘mother’ and ‘father’, perhaps emphasizing their role in the family above all else). Mr Hardcastle asks if their children are up for work yet, and seeing they are not picks up a broom and bangs on the ceiling to make them hurry up. We cut to the bedroom upstairs which Sally and Harry share (with a curtain across it to give some privacy) and focus on Sally waking up and also calling to Harry to wake. He is sleepy and complains that he thought it was Sunday. Sally is more cheerful and says he doesn’t want to waste a day. Downstairs Mrs Hardcastle helps Mr Hardcastle to wash the coal-dust off in a tub before the fire – he frets that Harry and Sally are still not down. They arrive, but on the way Sally dares her brother to ask their father the thing which Harry desperately wants to – for a suit (he has nothing to wear but his work overalls). Harry thinks his dad is in a bad mood, but asks anyway over breakfast (just after their father had divided a hard-boiled egg between three of them – Mrs Hardcastle goes without). His mother explains they just can’t afford it and that father won’t use weekly payments to the clothing club. Harry persists and his father becomes angry saying he too has worked all his life and has nothing to show for it. when Harry and Sally have left for work, Mrs Hardcastle says that Harry us right – he’s not fit to be seen in the street. Mr Hardcastle says he doesn’t want to see his wife going off to the pawnshop every Monday morning like Mrs Nattle.

We then cut to the women of the neighbourhood outside the pawnshop, waiting for it to open. The boy clerk, Ormerod, opens the door and they push to get in, but Mrs Nattle fights her way to the front. There is the continuous noise of the crowd of women except for an awed silence as Mr Price counts out his petty cash. Then Mrs Nattle pursues her business with Price pawning items for all her customers (for a commission). However, she also sees Mrs Dorbell quietly slip a pension book into her lodger’s suit which she is pawning (without his knowledge). They have a whispered conversation about Mrs Nattle not knowing Price would take pension books as pledges, it being illegal. But Mrs Dorbell assures her he does, and Mrs Nattle is glad to find this out. Mrs Dorbel next says her cough is still bad and asks if Mrs Nattle has ‘anything in the house’. Mrs Nattle says that her motto is ‘neighbours obliged’, and we next cut to the two women in the street going to Mrs Nattle’s front door and then inside.

Mrs Dorbell coughs pointedly, while Mrs Nattle unlocks a high cupboard and brings out a bottle of whisky, just under half-full. She measures out a very careful (small) glass and asks for threepence before handing it over (Mrs Nattle does not do anything out of charity). There is a knock on the door (Mrs Nattle hides the bottle under the table – she of course doesn’t have a license to retail alcohol) and the two other members of the chorus enter – Mrs Jike and Mrs Bull. They too hand over threepence each for very carefully poured measures. There is yet another knock on the door, and Mrs Nattle tells everyone to hide their glasses. It turns out to be Mrs Hardcastle, who is clearly from their reactions not a usual visitor. Mrs Hardcastle nervously explains that her Harry needs a new suit, and Mrs Nattle knows at once that she needs to use the services of the Good Samaritan Clothing Club, of which she is the local agent. There is some swift discussion of the total price and the deposit and the weekly payments (three pounds, and three shillings, and three shillings a week for twenty weeks). There is some conversation about whether Sally will be getting married soon, and Mrs Bull says Sam Grundy is interested but Mrs Hardcastle says she would not be happy with that association.

There is now a cut to a pub with a pub piano playing and Ned Narky ordering another pint at the bar – only to be told that he can have no more credit because many of the works are going on to short time. Angry and disgusted, Ned leaves the pub. He sees Larry Meath giving a political talk in the street outside to a small gathering (about eight people!) arguing that they should no longer put up with their current conditions but vote Labour at then next election. Apart from those close to Larry, but listening anyway, is Sally, who has apparently agreed to meet Ned Narkey there to go ‘jazzing’ (dancing). Ned is immediately rude to her, saying she has kept him waiting and why didn’t she come into the pub to find him. She says it was a fine place to wait, implying it wasn’t a fit place for her to enter (she has apparently changed her mind very rapidly about meeting Ned, though in fact these few moments of dialogue are radically compressing a longer history mentioned in the novel of a time when Sally and Ned did go out together). Ned says he is tired of ‘trailing’ Sally around ‘ and all for nothing’. The crude sexual implication is clear and not surprisingly Sally tells Ned he is ‘a dirty dog’. Ned spits and leaves. Sally is clearly also interested in Larry’s speech – or anyway in Larry – which is confirmed when he finishes his speech and comes over to talk to her. He asks if he has made a convert. She says she likes the way he talks but ‘knows nowt about politics – it is the first time she has listened’. Sally asks Larry if he spends all his spare time giving speeches or if he ever goes out ‘jazzing’. He says he likes giving the speeches, but also goes on rambles on the moors with the Labour club – and invites her to come. She says she’d love to, before Larry’s helper Jim says how much longer is he going to be. Larry says he won’t forget and the scene ends with Sally looking very pleased.

Next there is a cut to stock footage of an industrial scene, with rail goods wagons heading towards a pit head, and then a cut to a yard with some twenty coal-stained miners milling around. One asks another what they are doing and is told the pit has cut work to three days a week. The camera pans along the line of unhappy miners’ faces, finally reaching the only one we recognise – Mr Hardcastle, who says ‘but paper said trade was turning corner’.

We cut again to the Hardcastle kitchen, where Harry is coming downstairs, proudly wearing his new (and of course as yet unpaid for) suit. His mother and Sally are impressed and agree he looks a real masher. However, his mother says he must take it off – it’s not for everyday wear, a view immediately repeated by his father who has just arrived back from work. Of course, Mr Hardcastle has just heard about the pit going over to a three-day week, so though cheerful in front of Harry, the suit is another addition to the family’s burdens. Harry, oblivious of this new circumstance, goes out to show off the new suit to Helen Hawkins. The two meet up in one of the few remaining green spaces in Hanky Park, Dawney’s Hill. Harry says he is very happy except that he has no money in his new suit pockets to buy Helen the things he’d like to. The two are optimistic that this will change when Harry completes his apprenticeship and is paid as a fully-qualified engineer. Harry also hopes his weekly threepenny treble bet with Sam Grundy will one day come good. The two see a train pass in the cutting below and reflect that they have never been on a train. In one of the many neat pieces of continuity in the film the shot of the distant train edits to a (stock) close up of a locomotive, with its moving wheels, drive rod and cranks giving a sense of tremendous speed and power. There is then a cut to a landscape of the moors and then to a closer shot of Larry and Sally on the film’s set of the moors above Hanky Park. This economically gets the couple to their Sunday ramble and soon lets the viewer focus on what really matters: their conversation and thoughts.

Next we cut back to North Street on their unavoidable return to Hanky Park. Sally tells her mother how much she has enjoyed her outing and about Larry knowing the names of birds. Her mother says she approves of Larry. In the next scene Mrs Bull and Mrs Dorbell and an unnamed neighbour all meet at Mrs Nattle’s house for a séance and fortune-telling. Mrs Hardcastle and Sally join them, but Sally is upset when the fortune-telling just seems to recycle gossip about her and walks out.

Harry finds out from the newspapers that his weekly thrippenny treble bet with Sam Grundy has against the odds won! He goes to collect his unbelievable winnings of twenty-two pounds from Sam Grundy who hands it over in a flurry of public publicity for the benefits of betting with him!. Sam tells Harry to give Sally a few pounds from his winnings. Harry goes home to show his amazing haul and his family say he should just this once have a holiday, and take Helen to Blackpool. Next we see Harry and Helen enjoying this dreamlike experience as they experience the ‘luxury’ of their (separate) boarding house bedrooms and its bathroom in the corridor which has hot and cold running water! they they go out and enjoy the funfair, the front, the Tower ballroom and the illuminations (in fact these scenes represent their whole fortnight in Blackpool, which – inevitably – rushes by, leaving to face the deflating prospect of a return to the ‘normality’ of their lives in Hanky Park.

We cut to a crane at Marlowe’s works in Hany Park – before it jams. The crane-driver, Ned Narkey, goes to complain to Larry who has repaired the crane recently. Really though, Ned wants to threaten Larry that if he doesn’t stop going out with Sally he will bear him up. Larry is unafraid and says it is up to Sally. Then we cut to Sally asking Harry about the incident in a street near to where they live, Sally is worried about the incident and says Ned is capable of anything when he has beer inside him. She goes to find Larry, but he tells her not to worry. They return to their homes through the unpleasant back allies behind them – we also see Helen and Harry there waiting to see if her drunken parents will stop arguing so she can go home. Harry throws away his saved Blackpool Tower ballroom ticket and it blows away along the gutter, suggesting a certain loss of hope. The ticket blows past Larry and Sally too, who are also a little despondent – Larry thinks they can’t afford to get married as things are with various works closing, though she thinks they could manage. they agree they’ll wait but try to start saving.

The next scene cuts to a montage of moving machinery, but also to a Manchester newspaper headline ‘More Factories Closing Down – Five Thousand Hands Laid Off’. Next we see Harry being told that now he has completed his apprenticeship Marlowe’s no longer wants him: he is jobless. He meets Helen at Dawney’s Hill and they hope he will soon get another job, but he is doubtful. A second montage sequence follows, showing Harry against industrial processes repeatedly being told the works want no one, and soon the months begin to pass as captions on the pavement below his tramping feet. the next cut takes us to Mrs Nattle’s house where she, Mrs Dorbell, Mrs Jike and Mrs Bull all agree that times are very bad – the worst they’ve ever known, though we also see that their business ventures have not been harmed but increased by the worsening difficulties of the people of Hanky Park. Indeed, Mrs Hardcastle comes to collect the money Mrs Nattle has raised by pawning her wedding ring. Mrs Hardcastle also tells them that Mrs Hardcastle and Harry are both out of work and that she can’t afford the payment on Harry’s suit (but Mrs Nattle extracts a shilling from her anyway).

The next scene shows the lunch-break at Marlowe’s when Larry tries to explain about labour and capital about the current exploitation of labour, and the need for comradeship and co-operation – he has mixed success with his workmates. The next scene is in the pool-hall, where the unemployed lads gather in the hope of fag-ends from Sam Grundy’s sidekicks. Charlie in particular praises very different values: Charlie tells the lads how he was sent to prison for theft but that it had been the making of him, and now he lives by ‘working dodges’ He adds that that you get no reward for honest work, and because he has been in prison he won’t be called up if there’s another war. One of the lads, Bill, offers the others the chance to help him steal cigarettes from a warehouse, but most, including Harry decline. Harry next goes to meet Helen as her working-day at the mills ends – but she has bad news: she is pregnant. The next scene is Sally talking to Larry in his (no doubt rented) house about how much she is looking forward to their own marriage at the end of the month (and suggests Harry and Helen could live with them). However, Larry has bad news too: he has been laid off from Marlowe’s. Sally thinks they should marry anyway and manage, but Larry says he cannot marry while on the dole (and he has clearly read the newspaper on his table which announces that the Government is to cut the dole immediately). Sally is upset and asks why his Labour Council friends can’t help him get a job – but then apologises.

The film cuts to Larry addressing meeting of both men and women in the streets and the music suggests rising tension, but when we cut to the Labour Exchange the clerk explains there is nothing he can do: the dole is reduced for everyone and for some, including Harry, stopped completely under the new Means Test rules. Disgruntled men assemble in the street and head for a big meeting at the Arches. This is being addressed by a speaker who wants them to march on the town hall and refuse to accept the cuts. Larry thinks this will do them no good but lead to violence and arrests, so he tries to lead an already organised and more disciplined protest march along a route agreed with the Mayor and Police. When the march meets mounted police at a junction fighting breaks out wit the police as the marchers indignation boils over. Larry still tries to contain the marchers but the situation quickly becomes chaotic with attacks on the police and by the police. Larry is knocked over and then (probably) kicked by a rearing police-horse. There is a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder and the film cuts to the entrance of the Esperance Infirmary. Mrs Hardcastle goes in and sees Sally by Larry’s bedside. Larry gives a faint dying speech about the march and about how selfishness and lack of co-operation has led to all this world crisis. To Sally’s despair he then dies quietly.

Next we see his possessions being taken away on a horse and cart by the house-clearers,. Mrs Bull is appalled that they have given only 15 shilling for everything Larry owned, sparking a notably selfish anecdote from Mrs Dorbell where she recalls how when she sold a deceased lodger’s harmonium she got only 10 shillings though he had paid over eight pounds for it (Mrs Dorbell’s’s indignation is not softened by the fact that Mrs Bull is thinking of Sally nor by the fact that she had no right to sell the harmonium!). Mrs Jike now throws into the conversation that Sally has told her that Larry will not be buried but cremated (or as she says ‘created’) and that he did not believe in ‘burial club’ payments. This shocks them all – partly because some of them benefit from collecting for burial insurance. This leads on to the statement of a practical problem for Sally: she has somehow to find five pounds to par for Larry’s cremation.

Sally goes, at Mrs Bull’s suggestion, to find Sam Grundy, the only one likely to have five pounds to lend her. She finds him in the pub and he comes outside and willingly lends her the money, saying she need not pay it back. Sally is more than suspicious of his motives, and tells him outright she is only borrowing it from him because there is no one else to turn to. Meanwhile Harry confesses to his mother and father that he needs to marry Helen quickly and asks if they can share a room with Sally. HIs father is cross and says he has brought it on himself. They argue and Harry walks out saying he will never live there again (though he has no real alternative). Harry talks to Helen and says if they marry the workhouse will have to help them. They rent Mrs Dorbell’s spare room in desperation.

We see Sally coming out of her mill at the end of the working-day, and Sam Grundy is waiting for her in his car. He offers her ‘a job’ as his ‘housekeeper’ in his house in Wales. Sally tells him he is wasting his time, but at that moment Harry arrives saying Helen has been taken bad at Mrs Dorbell’s house. Grundy says he will drive them there to save time and does so. He waits outside with the car. Harry is told it is all over and that Helen has had a girl, but Mrs Dorbell wants to tell him that they can no longer lodge in her house since Helen won’t be able to work. She tells him he should be working and that Sally could get him a job if she was less selfish (the gross impudence of this) and took up Sam Grundy’s offer. Sally overhears this and decides she has no choice but this insufferable one.: she goes outside and gets into Sam’s car, who drives off looking triumphant.

The next (and final scene) is in the Hardcastle’s kitchen where Mrs Hardcastle worries about the malicious gossip there’ll be about Sally and also that Mr Hardcastle will murder Sally when he finds out. Mrs Bull reassures her (though the viewer may not be convinced) that Sally will take no harm, will benefit from her arrangement with Grundy and will be better off than staying in Hanky Park after Larry’s death. Sally arrives, smartly-dressed, in a taxi which she asks to wait (the neighbours see and do indeed start gossiping at once). Her mother talks to her about shame, but Sally says nothing has turned out as she expected it and that she spend her life slaving (Mrs Bull supports her). Sally gets her things to take with her, but her father returns and asks her if what he has heard is true. She tells him outright that it is true and she doesn’t care who knows it: she is sick of mending old clothes, of working yet never having a penny, of pawnshop goods. He is angry, but she tells him no one in Hanky Park can keep a wife and that she is not going to end up like her mother. He completely loses his temper, call her a slut and slaps her so hard that she falls over. He prays to God for a job: Sally hands her mother the two envelopes from Sam Grundy which will get her father and Harry jobs at the bus company. Sally tells her father that things are different now from what they have been used to.

Mrs Hardcastle has the last speech in the film, saying that things can’t go on like this, and that one day we’ll all be wanted, those who haven’t had a job for years, and those who have never started work. Then there will be no more Hanky Parks. Clearly, this speech looks forward, ironically enough, to the War (when the film was made and released), when there will be full employment, and if this film is right, a change of attitude towards poverty and unemployment. This is reinforced by the final caption expressing these hopes and signed by A.V. Alexander, the Labour First Lord of the Admiralty in the wartime coalition government (here taken from a screenshot of the CCC Youtube colourized version).

NOTES

Note 1. While this piece is (of course) all my own work, it is equally obviously not original research, and hence has no asterisk.

Note 2. Referred to in Stephen Constantine’s Unemployment in Britain Between the Wars (Seminar Studies), Taylor and Francis, Kindle Edition, p.41, and with a reference (note 15) to J. Stevenson’s Social Conditions in Britain between the Wars, Penguin, 1977, but with no page number specified, presumably by error.

Note 3. See the same view stated in the BFI main entry on Love on the Dole by Simon Baker: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/485682/ , but also my discussion of the issue in Walter Greenwood’s Love on the Dole: Novel, Play, Film, Liverpool University Press, 2018, pp. 173-4 where the Australian newspaper material is discussed. For Greenwood’s own quotation of the caption see Walter Greenwood’s People’s War Manifesto (Sunday Mirror, 1941).