Author
Bill Hodson lives in York and began writing after a successful career in adult social care and housing. He is the author of several plays and an award-winning short story writer. His first novel - Tracking Back - is a crime mystery set in his home town of Bolton and was published in 2023.
His latest work is a fictionalized account of the 1937-38 Mass Observation expedition to Worktown , when a group of intellectuals and idealists travelled to Lancashire to document working-class life, hoping to spur the government into action. From a long line of mill workers, he gives a voice to the local people who were studied as though they were members of a remote tribe - voices that went unheard at the time.
Bill's new novel, Worktown will be published in October 2025.
1938. Britain is in recession and another global war is looming. A group of idealists and intellectuals make an expedition to Lancashire to record the grim reality of working class life and shame the government into action. The team conduct themselves as if they were observing a remote tribe in the South Pacific, chronicling strange rituals and relying on local scouts and interpreters to understand what they see.
Edward, a young Cambridge graduate at a loose end, falls in love with a young weaver, Molly, who is part of the local Labour party. He thinks he can find his purpose in life through her and through him she glimpses another world away from the drudgery of the mill. But the gulf in their backgrounds and their total ignorance about sex stand in their way. Can their love survive as the project starts to break up in anger and disarray?
Worktown is a fictional account of the first ever Mass Observation field study and asks if you can really learn about life by observing it safely from the sidelines or whether you must jump in and take the plunge if you want to make a difference.