Introduction.. 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. 7.. 8.. 9.. 10.. 11..

DH: This is about the early years of my childhood, and I am not the agent or actor here; I am merely an observer, so that it's about the ambience of my life; the world that surrounded me, and it's called 'Figures in a Bygone Landscape'.

It's about the other figures, about the people of my family and my immediate environment; so the real problem of autobiography, writing about oneself, doesn't really occur. I'm writing about other characters; I'm almost writing about fictional characters, with some regard for the truth. Not terribly high regard, but some regard.


In what sort of spirit have you written this?


DH: Affection.


Sometimes it's rancour, isn't it....?


DH: Yes... I feel no rancour. I feel I've been greatly blessed. I feel this about my early days particularly; they were very happy times, and I wish that time was as happy for all children.


Would you like to tell us, briefly, the nature of this childhood? Where it was, who they were?


DH: Seen now at this distance it would seem nearer to the seventeenth century than to the present time. The fact of not having possessions - when my grandmother died she left three and fourpence, which is about 17p.


This was working class Lancashire? What did your parents do?


DH: My father was a shoe repairer; my mother like most women was a housewife, though there were many women in Lancashire that did go out to work in the mills. Ours was not a particularly big family, but families lived together; what we now call the extended family; people spent time with each other.As a child, one was aware of being present in other people's consciousness.


People now watch telly for 25 to 30 hours a week; this is the time they used to give to each other.


I think people are desperate to simply have some attention; their admiration is reserved for people who succeed in capturing public attention.


Hence the extraordinary phenomenon of the "chat show".

previous page ... next page

Back to top