The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

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I’ve certainly read my fair share of gritty and depressing literature in my time, yet I found myself quite unprepared for the bleak and desolate nature of Robert Tresswell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – number 72 in the BBC’s Big Read. Eventually the old man Linden dies in the workhouse aged 67 and gets buried in a pauper’s grave whilst his grandchildren live in one room with the Easton’s. The Barrington’s of the world were few and far between but he did bring in a large slice of contentment for a short period of time over Christmas just to show that good, decent people do exist and they don’t have to wrangle to survive. Their work as hired 'temporary hands' in a painter and decorating firm, is short term and uncertain. Desperately trying to keep themselves and their families out of the workhouse, this vulnerability is fully exploited by their employers. Tressle who worked as a painter and decorator himself, uses his knowledge of this trade, and almost certainly anecdotal experience, to describe their profession, and therefore their 'plight' with a dark realism.

Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Sophie Rickard The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Sophie Rickard

Anyway, you get the idea, his views on Christians are, if anything, worse. I could list those but the more I think about these things the more tired I get of thinking of these things. I will say though if the workers, bosses, and Christians really acted in Tressill's time the way they do in the book, no wonder he wrote Owen the way he did. When Owen wasn't giving us another one of his speeches I could have liked the book. There were many interesting characters, and most of them had interesting names such as Mr. Grinder, the green grocer; Mr. Sweater the draper; Mrs. Starvem, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Belcher, Rev. Bosher, and Mr. Rushton who owns both Rushton & Co., Builders and Decorators, and the funeral parlor. Which got me wondering what building and funerals could have in common, and that got me thinking of my childhood when there were three funeral homes in the valley that were also furniture stores. I think they've all dropped the furniture by now, but what was the link I wonder, in the first place? Anyway, some of the workers are, Slyme, Joe Philpot, who indulges freely, and Crass; then there's the Besotted Wretch and the Semi-drunk, if they had other names I never saw it. Most of these people!' cried Owen, his usually pale face flushing red and his eyes shining with sudden anger, 'most of these people do not deserve to be called human beings at all! They're devils! They know that whilst they are indulging in pleasures of every kind--all around them men and women and little children are existing in want or dying of hunger!" My father was a house painter – and this is set amongst a group of house painters. I worked with my father for a couple of years while I was finishing my first degree. I’ve never really had a head for heights, and so that made a lot of the job an exercise in terror for me. But one of the things that painting does, that most of the other jobs I’ve done since don’t do, is it allows you to see a job finished. So much work today is task based and all part of an extreme division of labour, such that nothing one does ever really feels like it was you that did it. Painting isn’t like that. Although, oddly enough, it is here in this book, because of the forced cutting of corners the bosses require. With ingenuity, and in the mode of tragedy, we are shown in a hundred different and nasty ways, how man abuses his fellow man. Thankfully we are also shown how alternatives to this dystopia might be possible.In 2008, an adaptation by Tom Mclennan, was commissioned by the PCS Union as part of its contribution to the 2008 Liverpool Capital of Culture events. It was performed at various venues in Liverpool and later in Hastings at an event organised by the Tressell Society. Don't be put of by the density and length, it really works in creating a convincing atmosphere of the times and allows room for a rather surprising ending. Thousands of people like himself dragged out a wretched existence on the very verge of starvation, and for the greater number of people life was one long struggle against poverty. Yet practically none of these people knew or even troubled themselves to inquire why they were in that condition; and for anyone else to try to explain to them was a ridiculous waste of time, for they did not want to know.

Ragged Trousered Philanthropists: Rickard, Sophie The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists: Rickard, Sophie

Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.K. Pound Amount, 1270 to present". MeasuringWorth, 2022. 14 December 2022 . Retrieved 14 December 2022.AO: And, finally, what are you both working on next, either in comics or in other areas of the arts? This book, as well as being a socialist's bible, is a gripping commentary on the social conditions of the time...a detailed and scathing Marxist analysis of the relationship between the working class people and their employers. The "philanthropists" of the title are the workers who, in Noonan 's view, acquiesce in their own exploitation in the interests of their bosses.