Product Description

A book about the North, Simon Armitage's North. Not Northumberland, or Humberside, or Newcastle, or even Lancashire - but that bit of Yorkshire where the M1 slashes across the M62, where Jarvis Cocker meets Geoffrey Boycott, Emily Bronte meets Ted Hughes, Peter Sutcliffe meets David Hockney. His subjects, described with affection, acerbicness, wit and inside knowledge, include a typical Saturday night out in West Yorkshire, Hebden Bridge - the hippy capital of the universe, watching Huddersfield Town on Saturday afternoon, the electrified east coast line, and so on.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #92062 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

It's Not So Grim Up North
In this brilliantly timed and executed departure from poetry Simon Armitage has opened up his private world like a wound for all to examine. The result is one of the most precise and poignantly written declarations of Northerness since Lancashire last won the County Championship. In a series of short but descriptive chapters Armitage conjures up a world far removed from the cloth cap and whippet image of Northern England and instead gives us an insight into recording for the BBC, watching Huddersfield Town and commuting across the tops into deepest Oldham. This is a book with a decidedly local humour with plenty of "in" jokes which will soar 747 like over the heads of anyone not born within a 50 mile radius of Marsden. It will infuriate the cognosenti of Camden and Hampstead and I love this book all the more for that fact alone.

Needs to be read with an open mind - reviewers think on!
I have to confess to being slightly alarmed and very disappointed by some of the Amazon reviews of this book. There is no doubt that Armitage has a great way with both poetry and prose - I have taught his poems at GCSE for several years and have heard him give readings which never fail to amuse and make me chuckle wryly at the vagaries of life. The reason I am concerned is the way that people have depicted life in The North of England - I grew up in Sussex and only moved to Sheffield in 1996 - after over a decade here I can honestly say that I would never move back down South. I encountered far more 'parochialism' as a 'Southerner' and a Grammar school education in Tunbridge Wells left me in no doubt as to the inherent ignorance and small-mindedness of many in the 'Home Counties'.
Armitage depicts the kind of daftness, naivety and sheer buffoonery that is encountered from John O' Groats to Land's End - but he does it through the eyes of an intelligent individual who is utterly at ease with himself and his upbringing. One of the best parts is Simon's recounting of an amateur dramatics staging of 'Camelot' and the all-male cast's sheer enjoyment and unfettered enthusiasm from start to finish. It does help that I know many of the places mentioned - I have family in Marsden too - but even without this I can recommend 'All points North' as a great read and perhaps even an eye-opener for anyone who claims knowledge of life beyond Birmingham.

Funny, wry and wonderful.
This book was so enjoyable I was - almost - prepared to forgive Simon Armitage being born on the wrong side of the Pennines. He brings his poet's ear to the world he inhabits, and shows it to us in a loving way. I too had the advantage of a degree of cultural familiarity, being one of them 'Northerners', but it was when he moved away from the tales of pub quizzes and cricket crowds, and dissected architecture, or life on a film set, that Simon Armitage really began to soar. Couldn't recommend it more!