[Henry Livings, working-class Lancastrian playwright, screenwriter and actor.] Typed Letter Signed to Paul Furness, discussing the pubs he has frequented.

Livings’s entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that his farces ‘convey serious truths’ with ‘both a dazzling comic flair and an unexpected force and profundity that is heightened by his use of colloquial language’. 1p, foolscap 8vo. Twenty-two lines of text. In fair condition, lightly aged and creased, with four light ink underlinings. Signed ‘Yours, / Henry Livings’. One of a number of letters to Furness by writers, responding to his enquiry about socialist authors and British pubs. Livings begins by stating that the pub he has ‘used for some 20 years is the Woolpack, Dobcross’, ‘Although I’ve now left that village, and only go there a couple of time or so in a week. It could harldy be called a meeting place for radicals: the conversation is often good, that’s all (and plenty!). Stan’s ref. to the Fenton as a meeting place for artists of all sorts, is a sound one of course: it was known as “Studio 3” when The Northern Drift was being broadcast from across the road.’ He continues with reference to the Colne Valley, E. P. Thompson, Failsworth and its ‘Debating Clubs in pubs’, Saffron Walden and ‘the place of the pubs in local politics.. mostly drunken riot’, Howard Spring and ‘Thomas’s Chophouse’, Bill Grundy. He concludes: ‘Good luck with your book. It would be a pity to leave out the Labour and Socialist Clubs, particularly in the Colne Valley, which began to spring up in the tide of Victor Grayson’s successes, and following the repeal of the Combination Acts (not in that order).’ The 'Stan' referred to in the letter is the novelist Stan Barstow, whose letter to Furness (giving his take on 'The Fenton') is offered separately, along with those of other writers responding to Furness's enquiry. Furness's book does not appear to have been completed.