Fame is the Spur, by Howard Spring

Staff review by Chris Saliba

Howard Spring's 1940 novel Fame is the Spur paints an unforgettable picture of an era now gone.

Young John Hamer Shawcross is raised by his working class mother, Ellen, and his step father, the preacher Gordon Stansfield. It's the late 19th century, a time when the nascent labour movement is gathering pace. John Hamer Shawcross shares a room with his grandfather (in fact his stepfather's mother's brother), an old man affectionately known as the Old Warrior. He tells the boy stories of what it was like growing up in the early part of the century, especially his tragic experiences at Peterloo, where a peaceful workers' protest was violently put down. His girlfriend at the time was murdered in the melee that broke out.

These stories are absorbed by Shawcross, as well as the kindly instruction of his stepfather Gordon, leading to him first take up a career as a preacher, then a Labour politican. These early years are full of despair and struggle, yet as the decades roll on, Labour makes inroads until it starts gaining seats in parliament. Politics, however, doesn't enoble Shawcross. He comes to practice realpolitik, seeing compromise as necessary. Many believe he sells out his Labour values in pursuit of power and an eventual peerage.

Fame is the Spur (1940), a novel chronicling three generations, gives a comprehensive picture of the political struggles of the Labour movement, moving through such stages as the Suffragette and Communist movements. Howard Spring, a journalist before turning to full time novel writing, covered the Suffragettes in some detail. The sections of the novel dealing with the force feeding of women protestors  in prison and the general violence and opprobrium they attracted are extraordinary for their realism and detail. It makes for sobering reading to understand the sufferings these women underwent to gain the vote for women.

Howard Spring's bestselling novel is a huge, sprawling cultural history, suffused with  a deep melancholy. It's characters suffer much – the injustices of poverty, war, political struggle – and gain little individually for themselves. Shawcross, looking back on his life, has an attitude that is caught somewhere between a vain hope that things will improve and a cynicism fostered by much harsh experience.

For readers who want to understand the birth and early struggles of the Labour movement, the politics and social movements of the late 19th and early 20th century, and the inevitable failures of politics, Fame is the Spur provides an invaluable document.

Fame is the Spur, by Howard Spring. Published by Head of Zeus. ISBN: 9781784976347 RRP: $22.99

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