July's column: Alan Sillitoe

So whatever happened to Alan Sillitoe and all those cracking working-class writers from the late 50s and early 60s? Where is Arnold Wesker and who reads Up the Junction? Was it just a passing post-war boomtime phase that got trampled by the 60s? It isn’t just books: films by Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson, the Free Cinema documentary movement, even Billy Liar languish unseen although much-loved.