The Road to Nab End
Author: William Woodruff
Desc: William Woodruff had the sort of childhood satirised in the famous Monty Python Yorkshireman sketch. The son of a weaver he was born on a pallet of straw at the back of the mill and two days later his mother was back at work. Life was extrememly tough for the family in 1920's Blackburn - a treat was sheep's head or cow-heel soup - and got worse when his father lost his job when the cotton industry started its terminal decline. Woodruff had to find his childhood fun in the little free time he had available between his delivery job and school but he never writes self-pityingly leaving the reader to shed the tears on his behalf.