Originally posted @ 6:01 pm, Sat 7th Jun 2008
Alan Sillitoe was awarded the Freedom of the City of Nottingham yesterday.
Brian Parbutt, Councillor for neighbouring Sherwood ward, made an excellent speech noting that many of his colleagues who work in his Nottingham office had read something by Alan Sillitoe, much in the way people are thought to have read some Shakespeare and Orwell.
80 years old this year, Alan became famous for his first novel "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning" written 50 years ago.
The story was made into a famous film, starring Albert Finney, and a play, which I saw at Nottingham Playhouse in 1987.
Beyond the social drama, the movie shows a Nottingham of factories, terraced houses and expansive railway yards, now replaced. So the film is also of significant sentimental value to the people of Nottingham.
As for Arthur Seaton, the main character of the story, he might not be regarded as not much of a role model, especially for politicians. Imagine the strap-line "Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not" on an election address.
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