The Bricks that Built the Houses: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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In the early 1950s, many homes in Britain still did not have bathrooms and only had outside lavatories. The situation greatly improved in the late 1950s and 1960s. Large-scale slum clearance took place when whole swathes of old terraced houses were demolished. High-rise flats replaced some of them. Peasants’ houses were simple wooden huts. They had wooden frames filled in with wattle and daub (strips of wood woven together and covered in a ‘plaster’ of animal hair and clay). However, in some parts of the country huts were made of stone. Peasant huts were either whitewashed or painted in bright colors. The poorest people lived in one-room huts. Slightly better-off peasants lived in huts with one or two rooms. There were no panes of glass in the windows only wooden shutters, which were closed at night. The floors were of hard earth sometimes covered in straw for warmth. This lifestyle changed in the early 20th century as gas cookers became common. They did not heat the room so people began to spend most of their time in the front room or living room, by the fire.

I used to get frustrated asking, 'Why am I writing journalistic-style entries when I should be writing a play or a novel?' I felt so urgently I needed to make my mark and get moving, I was distraught about all this writing I was generating that wasn’t a novel.

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All my life I’ve been writing prose but not publicly. I write often: when I’m moving through the city I’m often just so blown away by encounters and situations. I’ll carry a notebook. I’ll be writing verbatim things I overhear. But it is not for the story that one reads, nor for the sociopolitical material, which is more crudely drawn. It is for the pinpoint evocation of a milieu, its texture and contours, all delivered with an intensely gathered and focused energy. Sometimes, of course, it helps to imagine Tempest reading – or, indeed, simply to read it aloud yourself. In passages like this, for example, the realisation of her rhythmic control is transformative: “She watched a boy on a bike doing wheelies past a group of four girls sitting on a wall who weren’t looking at him. She watched a man in a suit on a bench by the bus stop, leaning down to offer his sandwich to two fat pigeons, while behind him a homeless man was passed out on the floor, next to a sign saying HUNGRY. PLEASE HELP.” It may sound obvious, but thematerials are used in the local area will have an impact on the external appearance you gofor, or are allowed to go for.

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The first civilization arose in Sumer (which is now Iraq). There were a number of city-states. Each city had a protector god and the king was regarded as his representative on earth. Below the kings were nobles and rich merchants who lived in considerable comfort in large houses with many rooms. Their houses were two-story high and they were arranged around a courtyard. However poor people lived in simple huts. The robotic laying arm sits on a nine-metre high vertical lift frame, removing the need for scaffolding and for people to work at height. In the late 19th century workers’ houses greatly improved. After 1875 most towns passed building regulations which stated that e.g. new houses must be a certain distance apart, rooms must be of a certain size and have windows of a certain size. None of the improvements of the 16th century applied to the poor. They continued to live in simple huts with one or two rooms (occasionally three). Floors were of hard earth. Aztec Houses

Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2022-01-01 14:03:31 Bookplateleaf 0002 Boxid IA40280114 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdiscabled External-identifierAn afterword by the author notes that some of the stories in the novel began life in her play Wasted. A sense of this comes through in the book, which reads more as a series of character-driven set pieces than a cohesive narrative. Tempest is a talent for sure, but one who has not reined herself in sufficiently for the novel form. In the 16th century, the Spanish destroyed civilizations in North and South America including the Aztecs. Ordinary Aztecs lived in simple huts, often of just one room. The huts were made of adobe and any furniture was very simple such as reed mats to sleep on or sit on and low tables. Wooden chests were used to store clothes. In Roman Britain, rich people built villas modeled on Roman buildings and they enjoyed luxuries such as mosaics and even a form of central heating called a hypocaust. Wealthy Romans also had wall paintings called murals in their houses. In their windows, they had panes of glass. Of course, poorer Romans had none of these things. Their houses were simple and plain and the main form of heating was braziers. Saxon Houses Tempest gives an arch view on the disenfranchisement through characters like Harry: “As if all we want is shit beer and silence, beans and chips and f***ing scratch cards.”