Prof Lilleker had the pleasure of attending Bournemouth International Film Festival (BIFF) and participating in a panel discussion on who tells working-class stories. The panel followed a screening of the 1969 Ken Loach directed film Kes.
Set and filmed in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Kes tells the story of Billy Casper a boy on the cusp of leaving school with big dreams despite constant bullying and a dysfunctional home life. His one outlet is him training a Kestrel he stole from a nest. The cast were all local, hence the film is entirely in the dialect of Barnsley and reflects the character of the community and its people in the heyday of mining. Barry Hines author of the book A Kestrel for a Knave, on which the film was based was pupil and later teacher at the school his central character attended. The film was of and by the community, highlighting its rarity and making its continuing resonance all the more surprising.
These elements were core to the discussion. Loach is recorded as saying how important Hines’ writing was in making the portrayal of life in a Yorkshire mining community authentic. The film remains important, not only for its touching if sometimes emotionally challenging narrative, but as a piece of social history.
In showing what the community was like, it says much about the enduring values and character that persist across mining communities. Billy, if real, would now be 80; the same age as some of the older participants in our project. People like him have passed down their experiences to younger generations, experiences which may place them somewhat out of step with the modern world – particularly the casual violence between schoolchildren, Billy’s beatings from his adult brother and those meted out by teachers. The portrayals are also important because they are authentic, working-class people, not caricatured extreme versions of real people. While some scenes are shocking, they are depictions of the reality of the time, not put on screen for dramatic effect. They are also not placed there to attract shock, opprobrium or sneers. Mocking caricatures is a criticism some of our research participants made regarding the scant portrayals they see of their communities or people like them.
Along with Alan Bleasdales’ Boys from the Blackstuff, a story of the unemployed in 1980s Liverpool, comedy drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, depicting Newcastle builders working in Dusseldorf, Ken Loach’s films are seen as offering a real depiction of British working-class life with all its hardships and issues but portrayed with warmth and empathy. All these are testament to the storytellers and how they belonged within the communities they were dramatizing. The BIFF event showcased Kes calling on the industry to redress the fact that only 8% of those working in television and film come from working-class backgrounds. Accurate portrayals come from people telling their own stories, like the participants in our research, not their stories being told by outsiders simply aiming to entertain their audiences with stereotypical and extreme working-class characters.
