Survivors of Steel City

Sheffield 1986: Steel City has fallen on desperately hard times. In few places is the recession so painfully apparent; in few books are its consequences so movingly illuminated. Using a series of interviews as the basis for his book - with people ranging from respectable citizens to racketeers and down-and-outs - Geoffrey Beattie brings a struggling community vividly to life. But his portrait is of more than the dark truths of hardship, for it shows a city reinventing itself with verve and originality - creating a thriving alternative economy, drinking champagne in nightclubs, speaking in tongues in Charismatic churches. Brilliantly sharp and clear, 'Survivors of Steel City' is an indictment as well as a celebration - a picture in which we can see the suffering and the resilience of all British cities in the 1980s.