Len Doherty

Len Doherty (1930–1983) was a British miner, journalist and writer. He has been named as "among the most important practitioners of the socialist novel in Britain."[1]

Born in Maryhill, Glasgow in 1930,[2] Doherty moved with his family to Yorkshire, England in the 1940s and started work as a miner at the age of 17.[3] In the mid 1950s while working at Thurcroft Colliery near Rotherham he became active in the local Communist Party[4] and was one of a number of working class writers of the period sponsored by the Party and published by in-house company Lawrence and Wishart. His 1955 debut novel A Miner's Sons was the most successful of its type.[5]

Second novel The Man Beneath appeared in 1957; Doherty left the Party the same year[6] and began work as a journalist for the Sheffield Star, later becoming chief leader writer.[2] Third and final completed novel The Good Lion was published in 1958 and praised in The Spectator.[7]

Doherty was the model for the character of 'Davie' in Clancy Sigal's semi-autobiographical 1960 novel Weekend in Dinlock,[8] the pair becoming friends after having been introduced by Doris Lessing.[9] His writing was also an influence on Stan Barstow.[10][11] According to Sid Chaplin, Doherty was part of a "Northern writers' mafia" brought together by media coverage of kitchen sink/angry young men literature of the period, including Chaplin, Barstow, John Braine and Keith Waterhouse.[12]

Doherty was named Provincial Journalist of the Year in 1969, which led to foreign assignments.[2] In February 1970, he was one of several passengers injured in a terrorist attack by the PDFLP at Munich airport while on a return El Al flight from a trip to Israel,[13] which affected his career and health.

Len Doherty committed suicide in 1983.[2]

The Good Lion was republished in 2023.[14][15]

Novels

• A Miner's Sons (Lawrence & Wishart, 1955)
• The Man Beneath (Lawrence & Wishart, 1957)
• The Good Lion (MacGibbon & Kee, 1958; 1889 Books, 2023)

References

1. Bounds, Philip. Orwell and Marxism: The Political and Cultural Thinking of George Orwell, London: I B Tauris, 2009
2. Rogers, Byron. Me: The Authorised Biography, London: Aurum Press, 2009
3. "Len Doherty (Author of The Good Lion)". goodreads.com. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
4. "Doherty Len". grahamstevenson.me.uk. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
5. Wilson, Nicola, Home in British Working-Class Fiction, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2015, p137
6. Smith, David. Socialist Propaganda in the Twentieth Century British Novel, London: Macmillan, 1978, p185
7. "Common People » 2 Oct 1958 » The Spectator Archive". archive.spectator.co.uk. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
8. Engel, Matthew. Engel's England: Thirty-nine counties, one capital and one man, London:Profile Books, 2014
9. Rubenstain, Roberta. Literary Half-Lives: Doris Lessing, Clancy Sigal, and Roman à Clef, London:Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
10. "Stan Barstow: Writer whose novel 'A Kind of Loving' was a key text in the literary revolution of the 1950s and '60s | Obituaries | News | The Independent". independent.co.uk. 3 August 2011. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
11. "Stan Barstow Site – In My Own Good Time – extracts". stanbarstow.info. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
12. "The Making of a Working-Class Writer – An Interview with Sid Chaplin", in The British Working-Class Novel in the Twentieth Century, Jeremy Hawthorn [Ed.], London: Edward Arnold, 1984
13. https://www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/len-doherty-wrote-the-best-novel/
14. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-good-lion-len-doherty/1142983493
15. https://www.thestar.co.uk/arts-and-culture/books/book-club-len-dohertys-1965-sheffield-classic-the-good-lion-65-years-later-4253828

Further reading

• https://communistpartyofgreatbritainhistory.wordpress.com/2021/07/02/len-doherty-1956/
• http://stevek1889.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/sheffield-novels.html
• https://grahamstevenson.me.uk/2008/09/19/len-doherty/