Patricia Harrop

I hadn’t read a book by H E Bates for quite a long time. I selected Spella Ho! from my book case, containing my favourite authors, because I had just finished the second part of Bates autobiography and it had implied that Spella Ho! was a very good read. He said he had learned to pair down his writing, getting rid of extraneous words and cutting to the quick. He does this perfectly! The story moves along with the character of Shadbolt unfolding and I felt his loneliness and pain and the suffering which he endured. Descriptions of his tenacity, his dogged determination to get away from the London he hated, and walk the long distance back to his hometown of Castor are brilliant prose. It is easy to understand how he became a rather embittered and very lonely man. Eventually he had created this town of Castor in all its ugliness, without even considering that it could have been beautiful in parts. Although disagreeing with so many of Shadbolt’s views and wondering how he could be so ruthless at times, I can understand him and can’t help but like the character for some of his qualities. I love the book and found myself reading into the gloom of evening, unable to take my eyes from the page, until I couldn’t see any longer. He is a brilliant writer, of that there is no doubt. He is not afraid of creating characters that are not very appealing, writing from his soul and not just to please his readers. I am looking forward to seeing if I have some of the other books mentioned about pre-war Britain.