These Poor Hands. By B. L. Coombes. (Left Book Club, 2e. 6d.) THIS is an autobiography, and as such is an example to the records of pompous success or erotic sensationalism which have for the most part been the books about our heroes by our heroes in this century.
Fortunately public taste for the blatant success story seems to be dwindling. Our heroes are no longer the Corned Beef King and Controller of Cabinets who began by being a paper boy; but the paper boy who ended by being a paper boy. Fairly high on the pedestals of public sympathy comes the coal-miner.
These Poor Hands is the autobiography of a coal-miner. It is a vivid and unpretentious piece of writing which gives the full painful realisation of the long, mind-hammering drudgery of a South Wales coal village.
P. P. T.