We wove a web in childhood: Northern Flames by Ian Thomson

There are a number of good reasons to want to write about one’s past, albeit, a past veiled in fiction. One is to record thoughts and memories about a specific place and a way of life that no longer exists. Another is to help the process of making sense of one’s life and those of one’s friends.

Keeping these memories clear and free from sentimentality and the golden glow that settles like dust on temps perdu is no mean feat, especially when there is a great deal of affection associated with them.

Northern Flames escapes these pitfalls. Indeed, it never gets near them.

The book follows the lives of two boys, Stuart (Stewpot) and Ben, from their school days in Blackburn in the 1960s and charts the events that caused their paths to diverge.

The detail is rich, but never tedious, and the descriptions of the boys on an outing to Blackpool, at Scout camp and other youthful escapades, are not only very amusing, but ring true – even the ones involving fireworks.

The structure is deceptively simple: the story is told chronologically with only the odd, short flash-forward to provide a retrospective comment, in just the way someone would tell a story to a group of friends. The early section of the book has rich dialogue, sixties’ expressions, smart remarks and references to the Beano, while the latter part of the book is more reflective, bringing readers up to date about career moves, romances, and visits back to Blackburn – none of which is tedious or slows the progression of the book. Indeed, there is sage advice to teachers and a horrific first lesson that many will recognise.

As well as a reflection on a special friendship, the novel is also a consideration about what has been lost in one’s hometown and the paucity of value in what has replaced it.

I was surprised by how many of Stewpot’s experiences of growing up in Blackburn, and his sadness at the loss of familiar places and buildings, resonated with my own, considering I grew up on the other side of the Atlantic.

My hometown of Rustbelt, Massachusetts, underwent a similar evisceration. I actually attended the ground breaking for the major development that had flattened dozens of acres in the downtown area, demolishing houses, factories, machine shops, churches, hotels and myriad specialty shops that had evolved over a hundred fifty years.

At the ceremony, a helicopter hovered at the height of the planned twenty-storey building and lowered a silver-plated shovel so the mayor could take the first spadeful to launch the redevelopment.

To add insult to injury, just as in Blackburn, many of those “new” buildings are now gone, along with much of the town’s history.

As we watch – with sympathy – Ben’s life take its downward turn, we also see Stewpot feeling helpless to aid his friend. Only in later life does Stewpot realise that at while he possessed some maturity, he was still too innocent to be fully aware of what was going on.

Thomson avoids the temptation to indulge in the psychoanalysis of his characters and allows them to speak for themselves. While the delineation of the disintegration of Ben’s family might cause some to treat Ben as a victim, Thomson, through Stewpot, suggests that the fault is not in his stars but in himself – though there is an ironic hint of the hand of fate.

Yet, for all Ben’s failings, Stewpot never ceases to consider him a friend – which makes Ben’s biggest failing the failure to recognise this, and perhaps, find some solace, if not redemption. It’s a hard lesson for Stewpot that you cannot help someone who does not want to be helped.

Simplicity is possibly the hardest trick to pull off. We are too used to underlying meanings, clever academic allusions, misleading clues and other diversions that lead us to fail to see what is right in front of us.

There is no trickery here and few surprises. There is only extraordinary writing that is a joy to read. It is a book about friendship and loyalty, about time, place and tradition - familiar themes for Thomson, but each differently explored. The artistry is in the prose, the vocabulary, syntax, wit and wordplay.

The clarity of the scenes is such that readers will feel they accompanied Ben and Stewpot in their graveyard antics, school classes, shared tea, filed papers at the North West Electricity Board, danced at The Cavendish Club, drank too much on the Barbary Coast, and share the vision of the Blackburn they grew up in.