There are four chapters on his life before five years old – a feat of detailed memory – while his mother's alcoholism and the overbearing father whom Jack at length dramatically defies, form the dark background to the vigorous, at times bravura, narrative. The book found praise as a slice of Geordie naturalism, a convincing depiction of 'the other England' which so beguiled the imagination of contemporary intellectuals. On the other hand, its irony and subtly bitter universality went largely unrecognised. In "The Ampersand" (1954) Common took the story further, but his publishers went into liquidation two years later. Neither book had been a commercial success and Common had not completed the trilogy with his long-promised "Riches and Rare", a novel set in Newcastle at the time of the General Strike. Too early (or too old) to be an angry young man of the 1950s, Common was unable to sustain a career in writing. His political attitudes were by now out of fashion, and when he sent the manuscript of "In Whitest Britain" (1961) to his friend Eric Warman in London, Warman replied in a letter of 7 June 1961 that he was sorry 'such a bloody good writer' could not achieve success. There was too much 'class distinction' in the book, and the downtrodden, golden-hearted workman was a dated 'leading cliché'. Thus Jack Common, perhaps the finest chronicler of the English working class to follow Robert Tressell, spent his last years in Newport Pagnell writing film treatments at poor rates. He was born in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, close to the rail-sheds where his father worked as an engine-driver. After attending Chillingham Road School, where he developed a lifelong love of Shelley, and Skerry's College, Newcastle, where he gained some secretarial skills, Common found it difficult to extend his education or get a rewarding job. He became a vigorous speaker in socialist circles at the Royal Arcade in Newcastle and began submitting articles to left-wing journals. In 1928, against the wishes of his father, Common went to London with hope of a better chance of finding work than at home. After a stint as a mechanic in a machine factory, where he was sacked for making suggestions to improve work procedures, he was invited in 1930 by Murry, founder and editor "The Adelphi", who had noticed an essay he had written, to become circulation promoter and later assistant editor of the magazine.