Stan Barstow's short stories have become progressively more noteworthy since the 1960s. That results both from increasingly complex and effective technical artistry and from increasingly profound and complex subjects and themes. His stories provide a realistic, compassionate depiction of the lives of the working-class English in the northern industrial--particularly coal-mining--districts. As Frederick Bowers states in Contemporary Novelists (1976): "Barstow sets his theme against the unsympathetic background of Cressley, a West Riding industrial town of terraced houses, ugly factories, garish cinemas, and grubby parts," and, by use of sophisticated ironic contrasts and juxtapositions, Barstow's works "rise above the ephemeral in their concrete presentation of human character, their solid settings, their natural dialogue and, above all, their forceful and moving expression of what it is to be human."

Stanley Barstow was born in Horbury, Yorkshire, on 28 June 1928, the only child of a coal-mining father, Wilfred Barstow, and his wife, Elsie. After...