A Review By Keith Smith

The subtitle says it all. This is a paeon of praise to the North of England and to Northern culture, written by the Guardian’s Northern Editor. And fascinating stuff it is too. By turns humorous, surprising and enlightening, it should be compulsory reading for all Southerners ( and Midlanders! ) whose concept of the North is a Blackpool landlady or a windswept moor. Of course both of those exist, and full of character they are too, but there are also the Lakes, the Trough of Bowland (well-known to me and apparently a place HM The Queen has said she would prefer above all others to retire to), and wonderful, wonderful areas of greenery amongst and surrounding every town and city.

But this is far from a defensive trawl through what have we got better than exists elsewhere. It is an investigation of what makes the North the North…it’s history, its culture, its industry, its arts and crafts, and above all of course its people. If you’re a true Northener, like me, you’ll know a lot of the stuff in here, but then again it is well well worth reading for the bits you don’t know or have forgotten.

However, it doesn’t have as much structure as I would like. It is in some ways a very lazy book. Stream of consciousness writing until a chapter can go no further. It resembles a series of journalistic articles cobbled together rather carelessly hoping they somehow fit. Nevertheless at the end of the day I am prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt, as it is an elegy from the heart by someone who lays some claim to being a great Northener himself. Would I recommend it? Certainly.