Jack Common
Encyclopedia
Jack Common was a British novelist.
He was born in Heaton
, Newcastle upon Tyne
, close to the rail-sheds where his father worked as an engine-driver. After attending Chillingham Road School, where he developed a lifelong love of Shelley
, and Skerry's College, Newcastle, where he gained some secretarial skills, Common found it difficult to extend his education or get a rewarding job. He became a vigorous speaker in socialist circles at the Royal Arcade in Newcastle and began submitting articles to left-wing journals.
In 1928, against the wishes of his father, Common went to London with hope of a better chance of finding work than at home. After a stint as a mechanic in a machine factory, where he was sacked for making suggestions to improve work procedures, he was invited in 1930 by John Middleton Murry
, founder and editor The Adelphi
, who had noticed an essay he had written, to become circulation promoter and later assistant editor of the magazine. For a period in 1936 he was acting editor, and a collection of his articles The Freedom of the Streets appeared in 1938. V.S. Pritchett considered the book to have been the most influential in his life, and George Orwell
heard in the essays 'the authentic voice of the ordinary working man, the man who might infuse a new decency into the control of affairs if only he could get there, but who in practice never seems to get much further than the trenches, the sweatshop and the jail.'
Common's writing was warm, ironic and quirky - he ends his preface with: 'We begin with a handshake - now be ready to duck.' He soon won admirers throughout the 1930s as a writer with a genuine proletarian viewpoint, as distinct from the purveyors of middle-class Marxist fiction. He inspired, prefaced and edited the compilation Seven Shifts (1938), in which seven working men told of their experience. Common and Orwell became friends, corresponding and occasionally meeting when Common was running the village shop in Datchworth
, Hertfordshire
, about ten miles from Orwell's Wallington
cottage. The impractical Orwell asked Common's advice on setting up his own shop.
At this time Common and his partner, Mary Anderson (1901–1942), a childhood friend from Newcastle who went south to join him, had a son, Peter; another son, Robert, was born later. Though they never married, touching love letters survive from their courtship. Common was poor enough by now to be subsidised by Orwell on occasion, and when the latter was in Morocco
in 1938 Common and Mary Anderson looked after the Wallington cottage.
In 1939, during the editorship of Max Plowman
(1938–1941), Common left The Adelphi, which by now had become a significant socialist/pacifist publication, closely allied to the Peace Pledge Union
. At some time during the Second World War Common moved Peter to Frating
Community Farm in Essex
, where conscientious objectors, Quakers and refugees attempted to avoid contributing to the war effort by self-sustaining farming. Though many of the men had been in heavy rescue and ambulance work during the Blitz and the women in the Land Army.
Mary died in 1942 from cancer, and Common began living with and eventually married Constance Helena (Connie) Wood, née Sambidge (1902–1979), who had a son Jan from her first marriage to Gilbert Wood, another Newcastle friend of his youth. Their first daughter Caroline Alison (Sally) was born in 1944, followed by twin daughters Mary and Charmian, born in 1946. Meanwhile Common took part in a number of wartime BBC
radio broadcasts, including a lively debate, 'What Matters?', broadcast on 19 June 1942, which featured two opposing sets of speakers representing, roughly, suburbia and ‘the streets’. Common remarked: ‘I like a good argument’.
After the war he was engaged in writing film scripts including Good Neighbours (1946), about a community scheme in a Scottish
town; he also travelled to Newfoundland and Labrador
on another film assignment. The family changed residence several times, ending up in a council house at 32 Warren Hamlet, Storrington
, Sussex
, with Common trying to make ends meet by working at a mushroom nursery, while toiling over scripts and reviews at night, and writing for himself in between. He was acutely oppressed by financial insecurity—and the lack of beer and tobacco.
In 1951 Turnstile Press published Common's best-known book, the autobiographical Kiddar's Luck, in which he vividly describes his childhood on the streets of Edwardian Tyneside
, as seen through the lens of his adult socialism. There are four chapters on his life before five years old - a feat of detailed memory - while his mother's alcoholism and the overbearing father whom Jack at length dramatically defies, form the dark background to the vigorous, at times bravura, narrative. The book found praise as a slice of Geordie
naturalism, a convincing depiction of 'the other England' which so beguiled the imagination of contemporary intellectuals. On the other hand, its irony and subtly bitter universality went largely unrecognised.
In The Ampersand (1954) Common took the story further, but his publishers went into liquidation two years later. Neither book had been a commercial success and Common had not completed the trilogy with his long-promised Riches and Rare, a novel set in Newcastle at the time of the General Strike
. Interestingly, Lawrence Bradshaw had used Common's brow as a model for his bust of Karl Marx
in Highgate Cemetery
, saying that he found there a similar patience and understanding.
In 1956 Common embarked upon a two-year stint as guide to Chastleton House
in the Cotswolds
, a position obtained for him through Sir Richard Rees
(editor of Adelphi, 1930–1938). Predictable disagreements with the owner, Alan Clutton-Brock, put an end to an arrangement whereby Common had been able to get some writing done in the winter months.
In 1958 a friend from Frating days, Irene Palmer, was instrumental in obtaining a rented Georgian
house at 14 St John Street, in the centre of Newport Pagnell
. There Common spent hours working on books for film treatment reviews in the ‘garden’ (a cemetery), walking with Connie in the countryside they both loved, and reading to his children. His daughter Sally later recalled listening to Shelley and Omar Khayyam
in the translation of Edward FitzGerald
, whose atheistic stance Common was at pains to emphasise. He had always been interested in astronomy (his Uncle Robin was a flat-earther), and Fred Hoyle
's theory of an endlessly self-renewing universe, which dispensed with a creator, was attractive.
Though not a tactile person, Common was not a stern parent and never struck his children. He had small, feminine hands, badly stained with nicotine, and, Geordie-fashion, left domestic work to his wife. He was not a joiner or an activist, nor did he encourage his children to be so. He did, however, blossom in the right setting, often in pubs (a favourite was The Bull in Newport Pagnell), where he enjoyed political arguments with self-taught thinkers like himself. Another favourite haunt was the nearby working men's club on Silver Street, where he took his slippered ease at the bar. He was a connoisseur of beer and was described by his friend Tommy McCulloch as ‘fairly jolly’ at this period, though he retained his hatred of the ‘bulky bourgeoisie’ — and kept his Newcastle accent.
Too early (or too old) to be an angry young man of the 1950s, Common was unable to sustain a career in writing. His political attitudes were by now out of fashion, and when he sent the manuscript of In Whitest Britain (1961) to his friend Eric Warman in London, Warman replied in a letter of 7 June 1961 that he was sorry 'such a bloody good writer' could not achieve success. There was too much 'class distinction' in the book, and the downtrodden, golden-hearted workman was a dated 'leading cliché'. Thus Jack Common, perhaps the finest chronicler of the English working class to follow Robert Tressell
, spent his last years in Newport Pagnell writing film treatments at poor rates. He died of lung cancer in 1968, leaving a mass of unpublished material, now held in the Robinson Library of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne
.
In 2009, North-East poet and scholar Keith Armstrong published 'Common Words and the Wandering Star' about Jack Common and his work. He has drawn extensively on the archive.
has an album entitled Jack Common's Anthem, containing a song of the same name.
He was born in Heaton
Heaton, Newcastle
Heaton is a residential suburb and is split into two electoral wards located in the east end of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, about from the City Centre. It is bordered by the neighbouring areas of Benton and Cochrane Park to the north, Walker and Walkergate to the east, Byker to the south and...
, Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
, close to the rail-sheds where his father worked as an engine-driver. After attending Chillingham Road School, where he developed a lifelong love of Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
, and Skerry's College, Newcastle, where he gained some secretarial skills, Common found it difficult to extend his education or get a rewarding job. He became a vigorous speaker in socialist circles at the Royal Arcade in Newcastle and began submitting articles to left-wing journals.
In 1928, against the wishes of his father, Common went to London with hope of a better chance of finding work than at home. After a stint as a mechanic in a machine factory, where he was sacked for making suggestions to improve work procedures, he was invited in 1930 by John Middleton Murry
John Middleton Murry
John Middleton Murry was an English writer. He was prolific, producing more than 60 books and thousands of essays and reviews on literature, social issues, politics, and religion during his lifetime...
, founder and editor The Adelphi
Adelphi (magazine)
The Adelphi or New Adelphi was an English literary journal published between 1923 and 1955.founded by John Middleton Murry. The first issue appeared in June 1922, with issues published monthly thereafter. Between August 1927 and September 1930 it was renamed the New Adelphi and issued quarterly...
, who had noticed an essay he had written, to become circulation promoter and later assistant editor of the magazine. For a period in 1936 he was acting editor, and a collection of his articles The Freedom of the Streets appeared in 1938. V.S. Pritchett considered the book to have been the most influential in his life, and George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
heard in the essays 'the authentic voice of the ordinary working man, the man who might infuse a new decency into the control of affairs if only he could get there, but who in practice never seems to get much further than the trenches, the sweatshop and the jail.'
Common's writing was warm, ironic and quirky - he ends his preface with: 'We begin with a handshake - now be ready to duck.' He soon won admirers throughout the 1930s as a writer with a genuine proletarian viewpoint, as distinct from the purveyors of middle-class Marxist fiction. He inspired, prefaced and edited the compilation Seven Shifts (1938), in which seven working men told of their experience. Common and Orwell became friends, corresponding and occasionally meeting when Common was running the village shop in Datchworth
Datchworth
Datchworth is a village and civil parish between the towns of Hertford, Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City in the county of Hertfordshire, England. Sited on the Roman road from St Albans to Puckeridge, the village has examples of Saxon clearings in several locations...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, about ten miles from Orwell's Wallington
Wallington, Hertfordshire
Wallington is a small village and civil parish in the county of Hertfordshire, near the town of Baldock. Nearby villages include Rushden and Sandon.-George Orwell:...
cottage. The impractical Orwell asked Common's advice on setting up his own shop.
At this time Common and his partner, Mary Anderson (1901–1942), a childhood friend from Newcastle who went south to join him, had a son, Peter; another son, Robert, was born later. Though they never married, touching love letters survive from their courtship. Common was poor enough by now to be subsidised by Orwell on occasion, and when the latter was in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
in 1938 Common and Mary Anderson looked after the Wallington cottage.
In 1939, during the editorship of Max Plowman
Max Plowman
Max Plowman was a British writer and pacifist.-Life to 1918:He was born in Northumberland Park, Tottenham, in London. He left school at 16, and worked for a decade in his father's brick business. He became a journalist and poet...
(1938–1941), Common left The Adelphi, which by now had become a significant socialist/pacifist publication, closely allied to the Peace Pledge Union
Peace Pledge Union
The Peace Pledge Union is a British pacifist non-governmental organization. It is open to everyone who can sign the PPU pledge: "I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war...
. At some time during the Second World War Common moved Peter to Frating
Frating
Frating is a village and small civil parish of the Tendring district of Essex. It is about east of Colchester and northwest of Clacton-on-Sea. The parish includes the settlements of Frating Green and Hockley....
Community Farm in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, where conscientious objectors, Quakers and refugees attempted to avoid contributing to the war effort by self-sustaining farming. Though many of the men had been in heavy rescue and ambulance work during the Blitz and the women in the Land Army.
Mary died in 1942 from cancer, and Common began living with and eventually married Constance Helena (Connie) Wood, née Sambidge (1902–1979), who had a son Jan from her first marriage to Gilbert Wood, another Newcastle friend of his youth. Their first daughter Caroline Alison (Sally) was born in 1944, followed by twin daughters Mary and Charmian, born in 1946. Meanwhile Common took part in a number of wartime BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
radio broadcasts, including a lively debate, 'What Matters?', broadcast on 19 June 1942, which featured two opposing sets of speakers representing, roughly, suburbia and ‘the streets’. Common remarked: ‘I like a good argument’.
After the war he was engaged in writing film scripts including Good Neighbours (1946), about a community scheme in a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
town; he also travelled to Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
on another film assignment. The family changed residence several times, ending up in a council house at 32 Warren Hamlet, Storrington
Storrington
Storrington is a village in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England, and one of two in the civil parish of Storrington and Sullington. Storrington lies at the foot of the north side of the South Downs. As of 2006 the village has a population of around 4,600. It has one main shopping street...
, Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, with Common trying to make ends meet by working at a mushroom nursery, while toiling over scripts and reviews at night, and writing for himself in between. He was acutely oppressed by financial insecurity—and the lack of beer and tobacco.
In 1951 Turnstile Press published Common's best-known book, the autobiographical Kiddar's Luck, in which he vividly describes his childhood on the streets of Edwardian Tyneside
Tyneside
Tyneside is a conurbation in North East England, defined by the Office of National Statistics, which is home to over 80% of the population of Tyne and Wear. It includes the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Metropolitan Boroughs of Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside — all settlements on...
, as seen through the lens of his adult socialism. There are four chapters on his life before five years old - a feat of detailed memory - while his mother's alcoholism and the overbearing father whom Jack at length dramatically defies, form the dark background to the vigorous, at times bravura, narrative. The book found praise as a slice of Geordie
Geordie
Geordie is a regional nickname for a person from the Tyneside region of the north east of England, or the name of the English-language dialect spoken by its inhabitants...
naturalism, a convincing depiction of 'the other England' which so beguiled the imagination of contemporary intellectuals. On the other hand, its irony and subtly bitter universality went largely unrecognised.
In The Ampersand (1954) Common took the story further, but his publishers went into liquidation two years later. Neither book had been a commercial success and Common had not completed the trilogy with his long-promised Riches and Rare, a novel set in Newcastle at the time of the General Strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
. Interestingly, Lawrence Bradshaw had used Common's brow as a model for his bust of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
in Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in north London, England. It is designated Grade I on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. It is divided into two parts, named the East and West cemetery....
, saying that he found there a similar patience and understanding.
In 1956 Common embarked upon a two-year stint as guide to Chastleton House
Chastleton House
Chastleton House is a Jacobean country house situated at Chastleton near Moreton-in-Marsh, Oxfordshire, England . It has been owned by the National Trust since 1991....
in the Cotswolds
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
, a position obtained for him through Sir Richard Rees
Sir Richard Rees, 2nd Baronet
Sir Richard Lodowick Edward Montagu Rees, 2nd Baronet was a British diplomat, writer and painter.Rees was the son of Sir John Rees, 1st Baronet and his wife Mary Catherine Dormer. He was educated at West Downs School, Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge...
(editor of Adelphi, 1930–1938). Predictable disagreements with the owner, Alan Clutton-Brock, put an end to an arrangement whereby Common had been able to get some writing done in the winter months.
In 1958 a friend from Frating days, Irene Palmer, was instrumental in obtaining a rented Georgian
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...
house at 14 St John Street, in the centre of Newport Pagnell
Newport Pagnell
Newport Pagnell is a town in the Borough of Milton Keynes , England. It is separated by the M1 motorway from Milton Keynes itself, though part of the same urban area...
. There Common spent hours working on books for film treatment reviews in the ‘garden’ (a cemetery), walking with Connie in the countryside they both loved, and reading to his children. His daughter Sally later recalled listening to Shelley and Omar Khayyam
Omar Khayyám
Omar Khayyám was aPersian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology....
in the translation of Edward FitzGerald
Edward FitzGerald (poet)
Edward FitzGerald was an English writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The spelling of his name as both FitzGerald and Fitzgerald is seen...
, whose atheistic stance Common was at pains to emphasise. He had always been interested in astronomy (his Uncle Robin was a flat-earther), and Fred Hoyle
Fred Hoyle
Sir Fred Hoyle FRS was an English astronomer and mathematician noted primarily for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and his often controversial stance on other cosmological and scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory, a term originally...
's theory of an endlessly self-renewing universe, which dispensed with a creator, was attractive.
Though not a tactile person, Common was not a stern parent and never struck his children. He had small, feminine hands, badly stained with nicotine, and, Geordie-fashion, left domestic work to his wife. He was not a joiner or an activist, nor did he encourage his children to be so. He did, however, blossom in the right setting, often in pubs (a favourite was The Bull in Newport Pagnell), where he enjoyed political arguments with self-taught thinkers like himself. Another favourite haunt was the nearby working men's club on Silver Street, where he took his slippered ease at the bar. He was a connoisseur of beer and was described by his friend Tommy McCulloch as ‘fairly jolly’ at this period, though he retained his hatred of the ‘bulky bourgeoisie’ — and kept his Newcastle accent.
Too early (or too old) to be an angry young man of the 1950s, Common was unable to sustain a career in writing. His political attitudes were by now out of fashion, and when he sent the manuscript of In Whitest Britain (1961) to his friend Eric Warman in London, Warman replied in a letter of 7 June 1961 that he was sorry 'such a bloody good writer' could not achieve success. There was too much 'class distinction' in the book, and the downtrodden, golden-hearted workman was a dated 'leading cliché'. Thus Jack Common, perhaps the finest chronicler of the English working class to follow Robert Tressell
Robert Tressell
Robert Tressell was the nom-de-plume of Robert Croker, latterly Robert Noonan, an Irish writer best known for his novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.-Early life:...
, spent his last years in Newport Pagnell writing film treatments at poor rates. He died of lung cancer in 1968, leaving a mass of unpublished material, now held in the Robinson Library of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle University is a major research-intensive university located in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north-east of England. It was established as a School of Medicine and Surgery in 1834 and became the University of Newcastle upon Tyne by an Act of Parliament in August 1963. Newcastle University is...
.
In 2009, North-East poet and scholar Keith Armstrong published 'Common Words and the Wandering Star' about Jack Common and his work. He has drawn extensively on the archive.
In popular culture
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Jez Lowe is an English folk singer-songwriter. Lowe was born and raised in County Durham, in a coal mining family with Irish roots. He is known primarily for his compositions dealing with daily life in North-East England, particularly in his hometown of Easington Colliery. He performs both as a...
has an album entitled Jack Common's Anthem, containing a song of the same name.