Leeds in Print

[LS13]

Variation on the Leeds on Film Thread...Books on the City. Keith Waterhouses "City Lights" was a good read on Leeds in the 40's and 50's--bit before my time though.For a slice of whats being called 'Yorkshire Noir', David Peace's Red Riding Quartet - 1974,1977,1980,1983 can't be beaten. Peace conjures up some truly disturbing images of Leeds in the 70's and 80's but, if you can handle the machine-gun writing style, there are some fantastic descriptions of familiar places eg "The Gaiety, an ugly modern pub with all the ugly old charms of any pub which bordered both Harehills and Chapeltown. A restaurant that served no food and a hotel that had no beds, that was the Gaiety." Or how about this for a Lonely Planet style synposis of 1977 Leeds - "Leeds-a collision of the worst of times, the worst of hells.- The medieval, the victorian, and the concrete. The dark arches, black mists and broken windows of industrial decay, industrial murder, industrial hell. Dead City abandoned to the crows, the rain and the ripper. The king of Leeds."In a similar style,but non-fiction, Kester Aspdens book Nationality:W*g, details the events leading up to the death of vagrant David Oluwale in 1969. Again it has some great descriptions eg "There was nothing reassuring about Millgarth Police station. Once through the double doors there was an enquiry office for the public,though it wasnt the sort of place the public cared to linger. Through another set of doors, out of the view of the general public and to the left was a passage which led to the cells. The smell of sewerage and unwashed bodies was strong here. To the right, a 20 foot long, L Shaped mahogany counter—the notorious Millgarth counter which had jumped up and hit many a belligerent drunk in the face. Millgarth didn’t concern itself with presenting a benevolent front to the public. It was a Poilce Force not a Police Service. There were no rights down Millgarth." It also told me a few things I didnt know such as the criminal cases involving Leeds policemen at the back end of the 60s and race riots in Burley around the same time.For anyone who was familiar with Leeds in the 60's through to the 80's all the above are well worth a read.