THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF BRITAIN
OUR STORY IN NUMBERS AS TOLD BY THE OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS
BORIS STARLING WITH DAVID BRADBURY
Harpercollins, 304pp, £20
Here’s a book on the history of the UK told not through kings and queens and battles, but through the findings of two centuries of national censuses. ‘The charm of the whole enterprise,’ thought Simon Ings writing in the Telegraph, ‘is undeniable.’ First there’s the ‘gimcrack’ partnership of authors. ‘There is something irresistibly Dad’s
Army about the image of David Bradbury, an old hand at the Office of National Statistics, comparing dad jokes with his co-writer, the novelist Boris Starling, creator of DCI Red Metcalfe in Messiah, as played on television by Ken Stott.’
Of course the census categories themselves tell part of the story. ‘Within these pages you will discover, among other titbits, the difference between critters and spraggers, whitsters and oliver men. Such were the occupations introduced into the Standard Classification of 1881. (Recent additions include “Youtuber” and “dog sitter”.)’
The data isn’t perfect, of course – ten-year snapshots, Ings notes, does not provide the ‘granularity’ available from other sources – but ‘Chapter by chapter, the authors lead us (wisely, if not too well) from Birth, through School, into Work and thence down the maw Death, reflecting all the while on what a difference 200 years have made to the character of each life stage.’
James Mcconnachie, in the Times, shared Ings’s enthusiasm for the book’s quirkiness. ‘At points – enjoyable points – the book could easily serve as a quizzers’ manual,’ he said. ‘Who was the first pedestrian to be killed by a car? Bridget Driscoll, in 1896, at an automobile demonstration at the Crystal Palace fair. Which is the second most common UK language after English? Polish. The authors even throw in a few quizmasters’ jokes: how do you approach a Welsh cheese? Caerphilly.’
He concluded, with a melancholy flourish: ‘The book also looks forward to the next national census… In a world of real-time big data, it may well be the last. And that, in itself, will be a noteworthy change.’