General Chat

thanks all for your comments

Wow! Gillian an honorable claim to fame. Yes it was sad that he died before he was publishd and never knew the effect his writings had upon the public or government.

Solzenitzen, Engles Orwell etc. Great reads and wholly absorbing, but if we all agreed with all that is wonderfully written or what we have experienced.....we would be in a right muddle politically, socially and mentally.

See what you have started Keith :-)))

26 years ago I was involved in a youth production of a play telling both the story from the book and the story of Robert Tressells life and sad death. Relatives of Robert Tressell came to our closing night - his grand daughter if I remember rightly. It was such a moving book, I would recommend it anyone interested in how we lived way back then and also how it must have been for the working man not feeling that he had a voice to speak for him in politics.

Oh he will want to read this Hoobity.

Yes I read all them too Allan.....what may make you laugh though, although I agree with all that has been written by them...I am not a socialist.....weird eh? lol


Here is one downloadable version.....
http://www.unionhistory.info/ragged/browse.php?Where=irn+%3D+4001756+

Keith can't read sadly as i sent him a book ages ago and he hasn't even begun it.
Am now sending him Janet and John to get him started. xx

And Just to have the last word :-)))))


Product Description
'The present system means joyless drudgery, semi-starvation, rags and premature death; and they vote for it and uphold it. Let them have what they vote for! Let them drudge and let them starve!' There is no other novel quite like The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. George Orwell called it 'a wonderful book'; its readers have become a living part of its remarkable history. Tressell's novel is about survival on the underside of the Edwardian Twilight, about exploitative employment when the only safety nets are charity, workhouse, and grave.

Following the fortunes of a group of painters and decorators and their families, and the attempts to rouse their political will by the Socialist visionary Frank Owen, the book is both a highly entertaining story and a passionate appeal for a fairer way of life. It asks questions that are still being asked today: why do your wages bear no relation to the value of your work?

Why do fat cats get richer when you don't? Tressell's answers are 'The Great Money Trick' and the 'philanthropy' of an unenlightened workforce, who give away their rights and aspirations to a decent life so freely. Intellectually enlightening, deeply moving and gloriously funny (complete with exploding clergyman), The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is a book that changes lives.

thanks Susan

I bet you won't be able to put it down. He explains the class system through his characters, mostly working class painters and decorators with a few bosses thrown in. The system is so true of today that I bet you will be able to recognise all the characters from working with someone similar from the book.

There is a preview here for anyone interested

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X61AJIJNAQ8C&pg=PR24&lpg=PR24&dq=
robert+tressell+the+ragged+trousered+
philanthropists&source=bl&ots=oXeLCfJ71V&sig
=4rwvk16-pK4yoMoR8fgrVoIJksU&hl=en&ei
=Q0ZaStLlMt3RjAfFjN0a&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct
=result&resnum=2



Ok I know it is a bit long and I should have used tiny url :-)))))

our library has it in

And so it is. I think a review may be found online somewhere.

I got mine second hand on Amazon as it seems it is now out of print ( could be wrong.

the OH says its so true to life

Susan its one of the things i said i will make time for Reading
which i shall do soon

Why haven't 'you' read it too? Tsk!....So true today as it was yester-year

The wife said his book was great

Have you read his book?. Brilliant and he died so young too, before it got published.

the author of the ragged trousered philantropist
i saw his grave today hes buried in Rice lane Farm Liverpool

now that was something i didnt know