The Manchester Writers

John Harris explores the work of a group of authors who captured a northern social realism in the 1930s with writing that went on to shape the views of northern living for generations.

Walter Greenwood, Howard Spring and Louis Golding wrote about Greater Manchester at a time of severe economic depression and great poverty and their novels describe conditions that have resonances with our life today - cuts in welfare, increased unemployment and a coalition government.

Greenwood's 'Love on the Dole', Golding's 'Magnolia Street' and Spring's 'Fame is the Spur' depict a tough, working class life and although the three authors wrote from slightly different perspectives, they describe people enduring a grim, hard existence in an industrial landscape.

As the final parts of industrial Manchester and Salford are finally transformed by investment and modernisation, 'The Manchester Writers' visits the streets that inspired these authors and hears how their work has endured and influenced ideas of northern England.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2010.

John Harris takes a look at how writers in 1930s Manchester shaped our views of the north.