Young Writers Society

Hi, this is a prologue to a novel I plan to write when I'm done editing my last one. Would love to get some feedback - mainly interested in hearing whether it draws you in or not. Thanks to anyone who reviews, I will definately return the favour...

They Call It 'Broken Britain' Prologue

Up North, where the drizzly skies and lush hillsides give the impression that the rest of the world does not exist, the mills used to cough and stutter all day long. Once upon a time tall, blackened chimneys used to work and pump out smoke into the greying skies, creaking wheels used to turn the rivers round and round, and stunted, expressionless workers used to file into the factories day in, day out like cows going in to be milked. The cobbled streets were worn down by the horse-shoes that clip-clopped up and down all day, and the dirty shop windows were full of freshly baked bread and clothes made in the local cotton mills. A new working class had formed – one of the great British industrial revolution; a class of people down-trodden and poor, sick from the factory fumes, but in steady employment nonetheless.

The Calder Valley is a cluster of chilly Pennine hills where dark green forests and breezy purple moors coexist together like coral and sand. What had once been rural farm land in a scraggly section of West Yorkshire, a new industry boomed which attracted people to come and work there – and that was mills and factories. They sprung up like jack-in-the-boxes and small towns grew and expanding into communities, rows of tall, filthy terraces were built up the hillsides and the streets became filled with the cries of a new generation of working class children. And for a while it seemed that the desperate poverty of the old farm workers was over, as the mills and factories were the most powerful in the world. The centre of the success of the Calder Valley wool industry was a fast-growing town called Halifax; a northern treadmill of growth and development despite the choking fumes from the billowing, black chimneys that filled its streets and air.

The second world war came and went, and as opportunity for work in the factories grew, new people started arriving in Halifax. Pakistanis and other Asian groups came to settle, and with all the work and money being brought in, the town became to prosper and expand. And the streets were no longer cobbled and filled with children’s yelps, but smooth and had motorcars running up and down them, and still the town grew. And for a while it seemed to be a prosperous place to live.

But then one day someone realised that people in countries such as China and Thailand were willing to make the exact same clothes as the people in the English factories for a much cheaper wage. In fact, the poorest factory workers in the far east would work just as hard for half the money than that workers in Halifax and the surrounding towns would, just because the desperation and need was so high. This meant that all the factories and mills in northern England all had to close down as soon as it became obvious their work was no longer needed. Slowly throughout the 1970s the chimneys stopped pumping out smoke, the great wheels stopped turning, and the town of Halifax came to a sickening halt. The black smoke faded away and the people were left standing in the streets staring up at the narrow sky wondering what on earth they were going to do now. There was no work, for the factories had closed down, there was no money, for nobody could earn a penny without the factories, and the high hills created a strong barrier against an escape, for there was nothing past the horizons.

There was the Welfare State, and the people signed up for benefits until they could find new employment. Cheap, flimsy estates sprung up on the outskirts of town where the ex-workers were sent to start a new life of poverty, unemployment and dreary routine. And they reproduced and a new generation of kids were born into the bleak pits of a dead-end valley, and to do what? To hang around in the gusty streets, cruel faced, empty handed and to wait for something to happen that might change the pain of routine. To drink and take drugs to feel alive, not caring about themselves or the world, just passing the time until something better would come along. To fight and steal and scare old ladies while their parents sit at home watching broken TVs and waiting, just waiting for the sun to sink over the stooping hills and a new day to arrive. Picking up The Sun newspaper in the shattered-glass corner shop to see the headline ‘BROKEN BRITAIN: ASBO RATE REACHES ALL-TIME HIGH’ with an image of a hardened adolescent glaring angrily into their faces, and the cycle of fear continues. Old folk daren’t go out after dark. White kids square up against Asians in the evening twilight, sometimes with knives or worse. Some say there’s no escape. Some blame unruly parenting. Others don’t know what to think.

On a cold January morning in the centre of town, there was one woman who stood alone. She was silent as she watched the people hurrying through the bitter wind of a dirty Halifax street, hands in her coat pockets, dark brown eyes scanning the faces of the shoppers with a mysterious smile creeping onto her smooth face. It wasn’t the sight of ugly, scraggly mothers with hoards of screaming kids that made her smile in that way, nor was it the harsh winter wind or the foggy skies above. She smiled because right at that moment, on the 9th January 2008, she, Gloria Montini had had the greatest idea of her entire life.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed xx