Love on the Dole

Love on the Dole is a novel by Walter Greenwood, about working class poverty in 1930s Northern England. It has been made into both a play and film.

The Novel

Walter Greenwood's novel (1933) was both written and set during the Great Depression, in Hankinson Park, Salford. Greenwood had been born and lived there, and was "burning up inside with fury at the poverty."

Related Topics:
Walter Greenwood's - 1933 - Great Depression - Salford

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It follows the Hardcastle family, as they are pulled apart by unemployment – the dole of the title. The son Harry is unable to find work, and is disowned when he marries. Sally Hardcastle, the daughter, falls in love with a doomed Marxist agitator, and suffers the unwelcome attention of a local gangster. Edith Sitwell wrote "I do not know when I have been so deeply, terribly moved." It was a commercial success, with three impressions that year, and eight more by 1939.

Related Topics:
Unemployment - Dole - Marxist - Edith Sitwell - 1939

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Greenwood said he "tried to show what life means to a young man living under the shadow of the dole, the tragedy of a lost generation who are denied consummation, in decency, of the natural hopes and desires of youth."

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