['We weren't very angry either': Arnold Wesker, radical English Jewish playwright.] Autograph Letter Signed to Paul Furness, about the part played by the pub and drinking for Jews, the ‘angry young men’, David Mercer, and in his own life.

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. 2pp, 4to. In good condition, lightly aged. Folded for postage and in stamped and postmarked envelope (with Wesker’s address printed on it), addressed to Furness in Battersea. One of a number of letters from British poets in response to enquiries from Paul Furness with regard to their pub memories. Addressed to ‘Dear Mr Furness’ and signed ‘Arnold Wesker’. Begins: ‘You must understand this about Jews: they descend from parents who fled pogroms which where [sic] usually lanched [sic] from the inns where peasants assembled and became drunk.’ Turning to his own experience, he continues: ‘Neither I nor my family nor my circle of friends frequented pubs. The ignorant gathered there to realease [sic] their beery prejudices and hatreds, to stimulate dutch courage & to give reign to a spurious imagination. / We gathered in our kitchens & shared tea, sandwiches, bread pudding, matzos dipped in egg & fried, & - if we were lucky - a little chicken-soup.’ He states that he still doesn’t ‘have the pub habit’, before turning to the ‘angry young men’, who ‘were never a group’ and ‘shared no social life’. ‘We weren’t very angry either. We simply had energy & that special joy which comes from recognition. I was rarely angry - except with fools, idiot critics, and (I’m afraid) drunks.’ He concludes: ‘David Mercer drank himself to death & was only ever maudlin when drunk, as I find most people drunk become. Maudlin or self centred. Conversation is impossible. They only want to be heard.’ He ends with apologies that he ‘cant be more helpful’.