Between 1972 and 1974 Barry Hines had an office on the 9th floor of the Arts Tower. As a Yorkshire Arts Fellow in Creative Writing, he was funded to write, and it was during this period that he penned The Gamekeeper, and an essay entitled ‘A Room with a View’, later renamed ‘This Artistic Life’.
From his office, Hines surveyed the view across Sheffield, and the essay shows us the sources of his inspiration: the factories, the council estates, the everyday working people. It’s a manifesto for working-class writing.
Here, Jon McClure from Reverend and the Makers, like Hines a South Yorkshire storyteller inspired by everyday life, reanimates ‘This Artistic Life’. The piece is accompanied by a soundscape by Rob Spark, produced by Graham McElearney, which captures and amplifies the repetitions of the paternoster lift that would have taken Hines to and from his office on a daily basis.
Second Mix of "This Artistic Life", by Barry Hines, read by Reverend Jon McClure