Collection: Henry Livings

HENRY LIVINGS was born near Manchester in 1929, went to the local grammar school, which he heartily despised as training for white collar snobs, and then won a bursary to Liverpool University to read spanish. This was a golden time of irresponsibility and feasting on the more abstruse aspects of those writers they managed to convince him were required reading, when the soldiers were coming back from the war to pick up their studies, when men were men and the girls were fantastic. He left after two years, having concluded that a degree was just a couple of letters to no-one and no mortal use in the theatre, which is where he aimed himself. His aim must have been off, because there were two years to be wasted on National service in the rAf (not entirely wasted, because his training as a service cook kept him and his family from hunger and want during his early penury in the theatre), and even then he had to work in industry to save enough to be able to survive the paltry wages a beginner in the theatre has to cope with. finally he got into the theatre, playing reps all over the country, and gradually spending more and more time beating the daylights out of a tough old second-hand typewriter his dad had the wit to buy him.
Incidentally, in order to measure up to Alex Glasgow’s impeccable qualifications, he has promoted his dad from the lower middle class into the proletariat. He now writes full-time, with occasional happy excursions into acting. His stage plays include stop It Whoever You Are, Big soft Nellie, Eh?, Honour And Offer, the ffinest ffamily In the Land, GRUP, this Jockey Drives Late Nights, Nil Carborundum, and Glorious Miles.