Record Number: 4227
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'Nottinghamshire collier G.A.W. Tomlinson volunteered for repair shifts on weekends, when he could earn time-and-a-half and read on the job. On Sundays, "I sat there on my toolbox, half a mile from the surface, one mile from the nearest church and seemingly hundreds of miles from God, reading the Canterbury Tales, Lamb's Essays, Darwin's Origin of Species, Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol, or anything that I could manage to get hold of". That could be hazardous: once, when he should have been minding a set of rail switches, he was so absorbed in Goldsmith's The Deserted Village that he allowed tubs full of coal to crash into empties'.
Century:1900-1945
Date:unknown
Country:England
Timedaytime: at weekends
Place:county: Nottinghamshire
other location: down coal pit, half a mile underground
(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:1906
Socio-Economic Group:Labourer (non-agricultural)
Occupation:collier
Religion:n/a
Country of Origin:England
Country of Experience:England
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:Ballad of Reading Gaol
Genre:Poetry
Form of Text:Print: Book
Publication Detailsn/a
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:4227
Source:Jonathan Rose
Editor:n/a
Title:The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
Place of Publication:New Haven
Date of Publication:2001
Vol:n/a
Page:242
Additional Comments:
n/a
Citation:
Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (New Haven, 2001), p. 242, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/RED/record_details.php?id=4227, accessed: 17 April 2024
Additional Comments:
See G.A.W. Tomlinson, 'Coal-Miner', pp74-77. No further reference traceable in Rose.
