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From International Socialism (1st series), No.6, Autumn 1961, pp.32-33.
Thanks to Ted Crawford & the late Will Fancy.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Family and Class in a London Suburb
Peter Wilmott and Michael Young
Routledge and Kegan Paul. 21s.
Family and Class in a London Suburb is the fourth social survey to emanate from the Institute of Community Studies. Despite the title, the book is sadly dull. It belongs to the genre of ‘face’ sociology – believing, apparently that the mere enumeration of all visible wrinkles constitutes the totality of the human face. And, nothing daunted, out come the wrinkles – a series of small surveys interspersed with large wodges of recorded gossip, complaints, rejoicing and miscellaneous personal information from a selection of Woodfordians. If one is interested in people per se, then one could formalise one’s gossip with the woman next door in relationship to Woodford, one could learn a little more sharply the problems of the old, of family visiting, of friendship, of the elaborate fandango of middle-class attitudes at their least important. The authors at no point seek to penetrate the warm fuzz of sentimental superficiality that clothes their investigations – the result is, with very minor exceptions, exactly what one would have expected from anyone chatting in a middle-class suburb. Twenty-one shillings is a lot to pay for the obvious.
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Last updated on 20 February 2010