Fred Wild's vivid, naive paintings recreate scenes of his childhood and youth in Lancashire in the twenties and early thirties. He grew up i the distinctive, closely knit community of workers in the cotton mills, in an atmosphere of neighbourliness and self help, where entertainments were largely home made, where the cat's whisker wireless was new fangled, hardly anyone owned a motor car, a visit to the pictures was a highlight, and many of his neighbours had never seen the sea. He presents this now remote world not only in pictures painted with total recall, but also in commentaries written with humanity and gentle humour.
Fred Wilde's paintings have been compared with those of his fellow Lancastrian, LS Lowry, but an art critic recently pointed out that whereas Lowry painted people "who suffered their environment Fred Wilde's folk enjoyed theirs". Yet this heart-warming book is no exercise in the starry eyed nostalgia; it is a document of social history, recording a unique way of life that no longer survives.

Shelf wear and damage to spine. Part of spine removed. Some foxing on the title pages.