Chopping down the Dherry Tree: A Portrait of Britain in the Eighties

Christmas, Linda

ISBN 10: 0670814172 / ISBN 13: 9780670814176

Published by Viking Adult, London, 1990

About this Item

A crisp clean first edition/printing, no markings throughout: Literary grace and sensitivity mark this account of British reporter Christmas's travels in northern England, Wales, Scotland and tragically divided Ireland. While noting that England needed Thatcher to effect certain reforms, the "gypsy journalist" also points to the downside of the prime minister's programs. Supported by interviews with people met on her journeys, Christmas's observations draw attention to vast changes in Britain during the 1980s, which suggest to her Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard , with the trees sacrificed to make money for "man unmoved by the past." But the author expresses the hope that destroying England's "cherry trees" can make room for seedlings that in time will yield fruit to feed citizens hungry for jobs, education and medical care.

Seller Inventory # RWARE0000019125

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Chopping down the Dherry Tree: A Portrait of Britain in the Eighties
• Publisher: Viking Adult, London
• Publication Date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670814172
• ISBN 13: 9780670814176
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Near Fine/Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Sciences::Sociology

About this title

Synopsis

Visits the Scottish Highlands, Glasgow, Northern Ireland, Wales, and various cities throughout England and recounts the effects of the social and economic changes of recent years on people in all walks of life

Reviews

Literary grace and sensitivity mark this account of British reporter Christmas's travels in northern England, Wales, Scotland and tragically divided Ireland. While noting that England needed Thatcher to effect certain reforms, the "gypsy journalist" also points to the downside of the prime minister's programs. Supported by interviews with people met on her journeys, Christmas's observations draw attention to vast changes in Britain during the 1980s, which suggest to her Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard , with the trees sacrificed to make money for "man unmoved by the past." But the author expresses the hope that destroying England's "cherry trees" can make room for seedlings that in time will yield fruit to feed citizens hungry for jobs, education and medical care.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Seeking to discover how much her native country had changed after ten years of Thatcherism, freelance journalist Christmas crisscrossed the British Isles interviewing oil executives, Trotskyist politicians, overworked academics, and callow financiers. Carrying "no political baggage," she admits to "an unusual attitude toward change: others may fear it but I find it fascinating." The changes Christmas describes are generally for the worse--falling educational standards, dirty cities, tense racial dynamics, and the permanent threat of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland--yet she insists "we needed Mrs. Thatcher to curtail our decline." The author's portrait of a nation in flux provides some interesting details, but Robert Chesshyre's The Return of a Native Reporter (Penguin, 1988) covers the same ground and is a much more engaging work.
- Kent Worcester, Columbia
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.