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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · 13d

RIP Tony Harrison.

One of the great 20th-century British poets and indescribably inspiring to working-class writers

"Next millennium you'll have to search quite hard
to find my slab behind the family dead,
butcher, publican, and baker, now me, bard
adding poetry to their beef, beer and bread."

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · 17d

"I don’t think I’ll ever really be middle-class," says Stephen Tuffin. It’s like being British and going abroad – I tell other middle-class people I’m just there in their world as a visitor.”

Read his heartbreaking short story about a boy left alone with his father when his mum leaves, here:

The Gift

The bus was empty but for one passenger who sat halfway down the seats on the lower deck. The woman was the man’s wife and the boy’s mother and she was leaving.

thebeemagazine.com

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · 26d

The Bee exists partly to challenge the processes that determine which creative work gets seen, remembered and erased. We also aim to recognise the ways in which class shapes people’s lives and artists’ art.

The Two Roberts is as good a demonstration as any of why that matters.

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · 26d

Really enjoyed this from @damianbarr.bsky.social

Such a good understanding of how social class doesn’t just influence lives, but also silences voices. Damian unions how that works, and how it feels.

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · 26d

Thank you. I now can't get the idea of Laura seeing a motorway out of my head 😂

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · 29d

Your pictures have a great atmosphere ❤️

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · 29d

well worth it.

The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · 29d

This is amazing to read! I spent quite a bit of time reading about Juniper Hill when we were preparing for the podcast and would love to go.

One thing I was curious about - Oxford seems so distant in the book but looks quite close by modern standards. Did you feel close when you lived there?

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · 29d

One Conservative commentator says it's time we stopped "sanctifying" "working-class credentials" 😐

It's one of those moments when you realise some middle class people's idea of what being working class involves doesn't have much to do with reality.

thebeemagazine.com/are-working-...

Are working class people saints?

Britain needs to stop its “sanctification” of working-class people, says one conservative commentator. We weren’t aware it had ever started.

thebeemagazine.com

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 5

Agreed. One of the most common things new wc writers talk about is the basic failure of mc people to take into account the impact of just basically not having money.

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 5

We wanted to do this book in our Working Class Library podcast for a long time, and we were very pleased that the novelist Sarah Hall could join us – one of the best writers in on wc rural life out there.

Listen on your favourite platforms or here: thebeemagazine.com/the-working-...

The Working Class Library Episode 4: Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

Richard and Claire are joined by novelist Sarah Hall to consider Flora Thompson’s memoir Lark Rise to Candleford.

thebeemagazine.com

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 5

If you haven’t read Flora Thompson’s memoir, you might assume it’s all cheery tales of humble rural folk who know a) the names of all the wild flowers, and b) their place. In fact, it’s laced with politics and class solidarity – and what it says about Britain’s class system still resonates.

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 5

One reason literature tends to be seen as “middle class” is working-class writers and books being class-washed – presented and adapted in ways that strip out their working-class identity.

Lark Rise to Candleford is a prime example.

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 5

Take your point, but I took the quote as implying "not ONLY about money or job title".

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 4

Image shows the writer Zadie Smith with a quote: ""Class is a complicated thing. It’s not about money or job title. It’s something more slippery, something less tangible. But there’s no getting away from the fact that, when you grow up working-class, you’re constantly aware of the ways in which you are different from people with money, people who don’t have to think about where their next meal is coming from."

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 2

One reason we believe the UK needs more working-class people writing and publishing is that stories and perspectives like this must be heard. We are proud to publish it.
thebeemagazine.com/im-a-leaseho...

I’m a Leaseholder Get Me Out of Here!

Buying a council house is supposed to give working-class people the rights and privileges of middle-class homeowners. But it doesn’t.

thebeemagazine.com

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 2

authorities taking advantage of people’s limited access to “power and choices”.
This is a national scandal – one that goes largely unrecognised, perhaps because it rarely affects those working in the UK news media.

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 2

authorities who, having sold leasehold homes to working-class tenants, fail to maintain the properties and then demand unaffordable sums for repairs. As Becka points out in I’m a leaseholder, get me out of here!, there is a clear sense of...

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Sep 2

Becka White, you may remember, is a working-class writer from south-east London with a rare gift for combining the personal and the political in her work. We published her story In Search of the Perfect Mushroom Omelette in July.

This time, she has written a coruscating critique of local...

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Aug 31

This is a long overdue book that invites a reassessment of how we should be dealing with the climate crisis.

To order from our bookshop, go to uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781...

Look out for our interview with Selina next week.

Black Climates: notes on Race, our Environment, and visions for Equitable Futures a book by Selina Nwulu.

To want to ‘save the planet’, a person has to have a sense of belonging in it…What would a saved planet look like for a Black collective?'This book is validating and monumental' Courttia Newland‘Sensi...

uk.bookshop.org

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Aug 31

In Black Climates, Selina Nwulu explores these questions, reframing the crisis by asking: what might a saved planet look like for a Black collective?

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Aug 31

Environmental movements need above to foster a sense of global unity, and yet they often seem to exclude the very people who need the most help.

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Aug 31

Black communities are disproportionately affected by climate change, yet mainstream, class-bound, white-led debates about the environment often leave no space for Black perspectives.

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Aug 31

In order to want to save the planet, a person must feel they belong in it. Yet Black people are often told they do not belong in certain places.

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The Bee @beelitmag.bsky.social · Aug 28

Come one, come all.

Image shows list of literary festivals and dates at which the Bee magazine's podcast The Working Class Library will present live events this autumn.

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