This is an unusual book with sections in it that were like long passages in the Pinter/Beckett/Ionesco school of thought. Dismissing comparisons between Priestley and Charles Dickens as absurd, Orwell suggested that rejecting such blandishments would make possible an appreciation of Angel Pavement as "an excellent holiday novel, genuinely gay and pleasant, which supplies a good bulk of reading matter for ten and sixpence. Tucked away in the City of London, lies a dingy, almost forgotten side street known as Angel Pavement. Anyhow, if you ever wondered what life in a small dull London office in 1930 was like, then wonder no more. J B Priestley's 1930 Depression-era novel focuses on the devastating effect that Golspie's arrival and that of his beautiful daughter Lena have on the various 'little people' who work in the firm.

His earliest books included The English Comic Characters (1925), The English Novel (1927), and English Humour (1928).

He has won many prizes, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the Eleanor Farjeon Award and the Kate Greenaway Medal, and in 1999 he was appointed the first Children’s Laureate. I have rarely become more involved with or cared more about a group of folk who seemingly have very little to care about than in Angel Pavement.

It is also a brilliant and startlingly relevant examination of what happens to a group of workers when the destructive force of a rapacious financial predator is unleashed among them.He powerfully evokes the social background of the period, especially the constant fear of unemployment among people who lived from week to week and could barely afford to save. To some extent a part of the time but not excusable and almost tossed it aside pretty late in the game but characters had hooked me, I guess. The story of pavement artist Sid Bunkin and his two angelic friends Corky and Loopy (who are not always best friends with each other) and the marvellous journey they take him on with a set of magic pencils. Early 1970 saw the release of ‘Tell Me What I’ve Got To Do’ (Beckerman) b/w ‘When Will I See June Again’ (Shepherd) but it fared little better than the previous release. It’s difficult to close the book without a sense of sadness - you want to know what happened to these people whose lives were left close to ruin.

The first single released on Fontana in 1969 was Beckerman’s ‘Baby You’ve Gotta Stay’ b/w ‘Green Mello Hill’, but despite plenty of airplay and good reviews it didn’t make the charts. And Sid Bunkin, the pavement artist, is awarded a special prize in the town's Big Drawing Competition. But the business was bankrupt anyways; times had changed, the world had moved on but old London had not followed.So that means there must be some sort of process to save the really great stuff from oblivion and let the merely good stuff slide. Bradford-born, I was familiar with JB's travelogue and plays but not his out of fashion novels, shockingly. Some “classics” sold totally zilch and had to be dragged from their graves by fanboys decades later, like Moby Dick. Some members of the Conservative Party, including Winston Churchill, expressed concern that Priestley might be expressing left-wing views on the programme, and, to his dismay, Priestley was dropped after his talk on 20th October 1940.