Sid Chaplin (20 September 191611 January 1986) was an English writer whose works (

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

screenplay A screenplay, or script, is a written work produced for a film, television show (also known as a '' teleplay''), or video game by screenwriters (cf. ''stage play''). Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of w ...

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

and

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

) are mostly set in the north-east of England, in the 1940s and 1950s.

Biography

Chaplin was born into a Durham mining family and worked in the pits as a teenager. Between 1941 and 1953, he resided at

Ferryhill Ferryhill is a towns in England, town and civil parish in County Durham (district), County Durham, England, with an estimated population in 2018 of 9,362. The town grew in the 1900s around the coal mining industry. The last mine officially clo ...

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

and worked as a miner at Dean and Chapter Colliery at Dean Bank. In 1946, he won the Atlantic Award for Literature for his collection of short stories, ''The Leaping Lad''. After another stint as a miner, Chaplin began writing full-time for the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "ve ...

magazine, ''Coal'', from 1950. He later wrote for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', including theatre reviews, essays of social observation and, from 1963, his own column ''Northern Accent''. Chaplin's literary career pre-dated the so-called angry young men genre and has been credited as an influence on the late 1950s – early 1960s " kitchen sink"

social realism Social realism is work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers, filmmakers and some musicians that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures ...

of writers such as

Alan Sillitoe Alan Sillitoe FRSL (4 March 192825 April 2010) was an English writer and one of the so-called " angry young men" of the 1950s. He disliked the label, as did most of the other writers to whom it was applied. He is best known for his debut novel ...

and Stan Barstow. His novels '' The Day of the Sardine'' (1961) and ''The Watchers and the Watched'' (1962) have been cited as classics of "working class existentialism" and were reprinted by Flambard Press in 2004. In 1968, playwright

Alan Plater Alan Frederick Plater (15 April 1935 – 25 June 2010) was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s. He is best known for the sitcom ''Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt'' and th ...

based his play and musical production ''Close The Coalhouse Door'' on Chaplin's early writings, set to songs by Alex Glasgow. The musical was revived in 2012. In 1976, Chaplin contributed to the writing of the TV series ''

When The Boat Comes In ''When the Boat Comes In'' is a British television period drama produced by the BBC between 8 January 1976 and 21 April 1981. Across the whole series, events are set in the time period from 1919 to 1937. The series stars James Bolam as Jack Fo ...

''. The following year he was awarded an OBE for services to the arts in the North East. Chaplin died in 1986.Chronicle's 100 Greatest Geordies: No's 45 to 42
/ref> A posthumous anthology ''In Blackberry Time'' was published the following year. In 1997, the Chaplin family deposited the bulk o
Sid Chaplin's papers
a
Newcastle University's Robinson Library, Special Collections
His son is Michael Chaplin.

Selected bibliography

Novels

*''My Fate Cries Out'' (1949, 1973) *''The Thin Seam'' (1949, 1968) *''The Big Room'' (1960) *'' The Day of the Sardine'' (1961, 2004) *''The Watchers and the Watched'' (1962, 2004) *''Sam in the Morning'' (1965) *''The Mines of Alabaster'' (1971)

Short stories

*''The Leaping Lad'' (1946, 1970) *''On Christmas Day in the Morning'' (1978) *''The Bachelor Uncle and Other Stories'' (1980)

Misc

*''The Smell of Sunday Dinner'' (1971) ssays*''A Tree With Rosy Apples'' (1972) ssays*''In Blackberry Time'' (1987) nthology

References