Book reviews: Scouse | Nelson | The Diaries of Nella

Scouse by Tony Crowley

Liverpool UP, £25 * * * *

It’s hard to think of an accent which comes with quite such a stew of associations as does Scouse. Whatever it’s saying, it seems, that distinctive voice also communicates some combination of chirpy humour; chippy aggression; friendliness; a propensity to idleness; an over-developed sense of grievance; an under-developed one of mine and thine. Tony Crowley’s searching book starts with a rigorous study of historic sources, their modern interpretations and the insights of contemporary linguistic theory. The conventional view has been that, in the 1840s, a warm front of Irish immigration (bringing with it squalls of spontaneity, sentimentality and good humour) came up against an unyielding mass of Lancashire grittiness, rough and dour. So superficially appealing has this explanation been that it’s gone largely unquestioned until now, even by serious historians. Crowley places the emergence of a distinctive Liverpool accent a great deal earlier – but that of “Scouse” as comparatively recent. In doing so, he opens up much wider questions of place, class and identity; of how people are seen and come to see themselves.

Nelson by John Sugden

Bodley Head, £30 * * * *

“No man wanted more to be a hero,” observes John Sugden in this, the second, concluding volume of the vast biography which began with Nelson: A Dream of Glory. Care must be taken in distinguishing between Nelson the man and Nelson the myth: debunk the latter, and how much of the former do we have left? From Foucault to The Thick of It, the last few decades have afforded us myriad new insights into how institutions have helped shape history, and how individuals within them have striven to further their own ambitions along with their ideals. There isn’t the slightest hint of modishness in Sugden’s study, which not only has all the old-fashioned scholarly virtues but is also, in the time-honoured tradition of naval history, a thumping good read.

The Diaries of Nella Last edited by Patricia and Robert Malcolmson

Profile, £12.99 * * * *

“Sometimes I feel as though life baffles me. I sit and think and think, trying to fit things together, feeling I look through a kaleidoscope that changes before I’ve seen the last pattern…” The 30 years from 1939 were a time of bewilderingly rapid social and political change – for Britain and for Barrow-in-Furness housewife Nella Last, recording her daily thoughts and feelings in this epic journal. Last is perhaps the most famous of those extraordinary “ordinary”  Britons to have been given a voice by the Mass Observation research project. What brings her diaries to life is their unpretentious freshness and honesty.