Lambs - David Marshall - Bog

The novel 'Lambs' follows one mining family, the Lambs, over almost a century of successive generations running from the Great War of 1914-18 to the Twin Towers of 2001 and beyond. Semi-autobiographical in concept, it tells of the struggle of the family to survive the hardships of the East Midland's coalfield in Britain and its time frame encompasses the period from the wars against fascism in both Spain and Germany to the assassination of Kennedy, from the horror of Aberfan to the injustice of Orgreave. It covers a world in which the fall of kings and despots is commonplace and offsets this against the continued plight of the working man from the General Strike until the demise of the industry. Some events impinge directly upon members of the family, others merely share with them the same pages of history upon which they both happen to have been written. They are shaped by all. Throughout the book run the entwined stories of ordinary people, their lives and loves, successes and abject failures; their births and, ultimately, their deaths, in the end begging the question, "Do we ever really know anyone?"