Abstract
This article addresses representations of working-class life in Britain during the1980s; specifically, experiences of recession, unemployment, and difficulty in theworkplace. The primary text considered is the television drama series Boys fromthe Blackstuff (1982), written by Alan Bleasdale; more briefly this is linked toJames Kelman’s novel The Busconductor Hines (1984), and to the post-industriallandscape of the poetry of Sean O’Brien. In the wake of the socialist criticismof Raymond Williams, the article explores how the “Industrial Novel” of the1840s may be succeeded, in the Thatcher years, by the literature of recession anddeindustrialization.
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