But when I came to consider local government, I began to see how it was in essence the first-line defence thrown up by the community against our common enemies—poverty, sickness, ignorance, isolation, mental derangement and social maladjustment. The battle is not faultlessly conducted, nor are the motives of those who take part in it righteous or disinterested. But the war is, I believe, worth fighting, and this corporate action is at least based upon recognition of one fundamental truth about human nature — we are not only single individuals, each face to face with eternity and our separate spirits; we are members one of another.

Therefore I dedicate this story, such as it is, to you, who have fought so valiant a fight for human happiness. I am conscious of the defects, the clumsiness and limitations of my novel. At least let me record one perfect thing; the proud delight which it has meant to me to be the daughter of Alice Holtby.

“Take what you want,” said God. “Take it—and pay for it.”

Old Spanish Proverb

Quoted in “This Was My World” by Viscountess Rhondda

Prologue in a Press Gallery

“The quarterly session of the South Riding County Council was held yesterday in Flintonbridge County Hall. Alderman General the Honourable Sir Ronald Tarkington, K.C.M.G., D.S.O., took the chair. The meeting adjourned for one minute’s silence in respectful memory of the late Alderman Farrow; then the Cold Harbour Division proceeded to the election of his successor. . . .”

Extract from the ‘Kingsport Chronicle’ June, 1932

Prologue in a Press Gallery

YOUNG LOVELL BROWN, taking his place for the first time in the Press Gallery of the South Riding County Hall at Flintonbridge, was prepared to be impressed by everything. A romantic and inexperienced young man, he yet knew that local government has considerable importance in its effect on human life. He peered down into the greenish gloom and saw a sombre octagonal room, lit from three lofty leaded windows, beyond which tall chestnut trees screened the dim wet June day. He saw below him bald heads, grey heads, brown heads, black heads, above oddly foreshortened bodies, moving like fish in an aquarium tank. He saw the semi-circle of desks facing the chairman’s panoplied throne; he saw the stuffed horsehair seats, the blotting paper, the quill pens, the bundles of printed documents on the clerk’s table, the polished fire dogs in the empty grates, the frosted glass tulips shading the unignited gas jets, the gleaming inkwells.

His heart beat, and his eyes dilated. Here, he told himself, was the source of reputations, of sanatoria, bridges, feuds, scandals, of remedies for broken ambitions or foot and mouth disease, of bans on sex novels in public libraries, of educational scholarships, blighted hopes and drainage systems. Local government was an epitome of national government. Here was World Tragedy in embryo. Here gallant Labour, with nothing to lose but its chains, would fight entrenched and armoured Capital. Here the progressive, greedy and immoral towns would exploit the pure, honest, elemental and unprogressive country. Here Corruption could be studied and exposed, oppression denounced, and lethargy indicted.

Lovell Brown knew himself to be on the eve of an initiation. To-day would open a new chapter in British journalism. “Do you remember when Brown started those articles of his on Local Government?” people would say fifty years hence. “By jove! That was an eye-opener. That was something new.”

Syd Mail, Lovell’s predecessor on the Kingsport Chronicle, had come with him to put him wise during his first visit to the Council. Mail had been promoted to the Combine’s Sheffield paper. Mail was a man of the world. He sprawled sideways on the hard bench running through the little enclosed Reporter’s Gallery, known as the Horse Box, and muttered information to his colleague and pupil with the inaudible fluency of an experienced convict.

“That’s Carne of Maythorpe—big chap in tweeds just come in. He’ll be next Alderman, they say, instead of Farrow, but don’t you believe it. That’s Snaith—grey suit, horn-rimmed spectacles, by the chairman’s desk.