In May 2013, a two-episode dramatisation of the novel was aired on BBC Radio 4, directed and produced by Chris Wallis. The studio producer eventually put the final nail in the coffin, and the band broke up at the end of 1970. I have a feeling that he squared the circle; that his writing is genuinely great while refusing to pander to the supposed refinements of great literature. Dismissing comparisons between Priestley and Charles Dickens as absurd, Orwell suggested that rejecting such blandishments would make possible an appreciation of Angel Pavement as "an excellent holiday novel, genuinely gay and pleasant, which supplies a good bulk of reading matter for ten and sixpence. The novel deals with how the man and his daughter disrupt the lives of all the small staff of the company.

Appearances on radio programmes such as Radio 1 Club and Sounds of the Seventies helped to bring their name to the public attention but not increase record sales, resulting in Fontana electing to pass on further releases. Their stage act was by now well polished and they were starting to make a name for themselves on the university circuit supporting the likes of Family, Free, Fairport Convention, Marmalade, Chicken Shack, Status Quo (a few times) and The Tremeloes amongst others. Funny, moving and bleak (its characters often antisemitic), this 2018 edition has a foreword by Sutherland himself. They managed to build a large following in their native York and this gave them a thirst to try cracking the competitive London Club Scene. Mal Spence took several of his tapes, including the ‘Wind in the Willows’ demo tape, down to London to play to various music establishments and there was considerable interest, but all offers involved Alfie being involved in the recording process, which was not what he wanted as he had decided that he no longer wished to perform.Tucked away in the City of London, lies a dingy, almost forgotten side street known as Angel Pavement. This book is firmly rooted in time and place, London during the economic depression of 1929 and 1930.

The firm is an old-fashioned enterprise run with old-fashioned decency under the management of the middle-aged and ‘gentlemanly’ Howard Dersingham, assisted by his similarly antique head clerk, Hubert Smeeth.Corky and Loopy, two perfectly normal girls, who like to draw - and who also happen to be angels - decide to help and give Sid a very special pencil from their collection. His arrival turns life upside down for everyone connected with the firm, but all is not what it seems with Mr.

All these argue robustly and persuasively in favour of a work whose merits have stood the test of time. A must read for anyone interested in London and a London working life that has mostly disappeared for ever. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. Angel Pavement is a typical City side-street, except that it is shorter, narrower, and dingier than most.Candler went on to join Decameron and the John Coppin and his band, and Shepherd wrote songs and attempted to do a musical adaptation of The Wind in the Willows, while the others exited the business altogether. It was a time when the loss of one’s job was not merely a blow, but a disaster from which it might take years for a person to recover. The steady but unexciting business life of Messrs Twigg and Dersingham, London-based agents for the supply of inlays and veneers to the furniture trade, is turned upside down when the firm is effectively taken over by a stranger, the buccaneering and rather dubious James Golspie. Two other books that were similarly immersive and with an array of interesting characters, and to whom I was very sad to bid farewell.

The novel has been twice adapted by BBC Television, in 1957 and 1967, and there is also a fascinating (and surprising) Russian television version dating from 1969. Then there's the principal of the firm, Mr Dersingham, who is going through the motions of being a businessman; his heart is not in it and he just muddles through his life. A third single and the announcement of their forthcoming LP all ended up "Missing In Action", mainly due to disputes between guitarist Alfie Shepherd and the studio's publishing arm. Angel Pavement is one of the great London novels: a vivid evocation of the sprawling and crowded metropolis during the era of the painful Depression of the inter-war years.Smeeth, the office manager, yearns for safety and security but has always feared that he will not have it. The last we see of the villain is on board a luxury liner, with his coquettish daughter (who has broken the heart of one of the firm’s clerks), sailing off to South America. One aspect of the novel I found jarring was Priestley's representation of speech by those with, I won't say impediment, but who have a characteristic way of speaking. The story of pavement artist Sid Bunkin and his two angelic friends Corky and Loopy (who are not always best friend with each other) and the marvellous journey they take him on with a set of magic pencils. But, equally, it doesn't delve deep into their personalities, and so everything remains rather unsatisfyinglly superficial.