I am sad that much of the late 50’s and early 60s literature has slipped from sight, as unfashionable as brown furniture in the antiques trade. I ask Robert what he thinks about his dad’s great book being the preserve of second-hand book shops? He thinks it’s that the sexual politics have moved on. We need to rediscover Billy as a landmark – not in social politics – but in our understanding of mental health This marvellous little novel covers a momentous Saturday in the life of nineteen-year-old Billy Fisher in a small town in Yorkshire. It’s 1959, and Billy’s lower-middleclass family wallows in the unchallenging comforts and conformity of dull, mediocre Stradhoughton. Everything is routine and predictable, which to the intelligent and creative Billy is unbearable, and he constantly retreats from the tedium into his inner fantasy world – Ambrosia – where he is a hero in the tradition of Thurber’s Walter Mitty. The New World’s main representative in the film is Julie Christie’s character, Liz. She is carefree, spontaneous, and unrestricted by social or familial ties. Billy is easily intoxicated with her approach to life, her association with frequent travel, and especially with London. Liz represents the new spirit of 1960s Britain at its most dazzling – she has cut ties with her Northern roots, goes where she wants, and is polyamorous. She represents the elusive promises of the New World, in which one’s dreams and the freedom to pursue them are unfettered by such dreary notions as responsibility, duty, or monogamy. “Ambrosia,” the Battleground A major battleground for these tensions is Billy’s imagination, much of it centered on his fantastical country of “Ambrosia.” This word means the food or drink of the gods, which in Greek mythology confers immortality upon whomever consumes it. In the film, “Ambrosia” is effectively where Billy’s heart is, where his dreams run wild, and his ambitions are unfettered. He frequently escapes his dreary home, strict parents, and boring job to an imagined land where he is king, soldier, dictator, celebrated author, and spectacular lover all in one.

Keith Waterhouse’s hero, William Fisher, is truly lost. He works at an undertakers and is busy fiddling the stamp money. His love life is a mess and about to unravel still further. But tantalisingly, there might be light at the end of the tunnel. He has a ‘job offer’ to go to London become a comedy writer. The book straddles the day of decision – stay or go. Instead, he lied about their safe dispatch and kept the postage money. His aspiration is to become a comedy writer in the capital, a four-hour train journey away. “Are you really going to London,” asks one of his trio of girlfriends, “or just pretending?” Billy Fisher lives with his parents and his grandma – albeit the latter might expire at some early or later stage – and the relationship is more than conflictual, it seems to be an eternal fight – especially with his father, who has had enough of his son’s clever, patronizing attitude and threatens to have all his things and the nineteen year old man out – which the hero or antihero might like to see resolved by moving to London, where he claims to have a job as a script writer, when all he has is a an answer from the comedian who states that though he had liked his jokes and pays for material, he does not have a staff, just some people who work with him, presumably as free lancers and on a part time basis, or just get money for humor that the artist can use… Waterhouse was of the mimetic school of writers, managing to capture the unique patter of his Yorkshire dialect and local turn of phrase without becoming exclusive or alienating those of us who aren't local or even reading 53 years after publication. It is this quality that stands Billy Liar head and shoulders above others of the time, it hasn't dated because at its heart there are no politics, young men still struggle with their identity and purpose in life and suffer from being misunderstood by those closest to them.Billy Liar' became an instant hit following its first publication in 1959 and has been adapted into a play, a musical, a TV series and even a film. In the novel, the philosophy of Stradhoughton's stoic survivors is summed up by a pub singer: "Now I think that life is merry, / And I think that life is fun, / A short life and a happy one, / Is my rule number one, / I laugh when it is raining, / I laugh when it is fine, / You may think that I am foolish, / But laughter is my line …" In terms of genre, the film is a product of its time. A rare example of “British New Wave,” (equivalent to the French Nouvelle Vague), it shares in the “kitchen sink realism” of productions that placed domestic life center stage: Grim-looking Brits spending their off-hours in grimy pubs became increasingly prominent, as did regional accents. The popular soap Coronation Street is an enduring example of this genre. The Old vs the New

And there is enough of a cliffhanger to keep you wanting to know: will Billy go to London (and leave his troubles and his two-and-a-half fiancees behind) or will he stay to face the music? Billy Liar is the chronicle of one decisive day in the life of its protagonist Billy Fisher; capturing brilliantly the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town in Yorkshire after the second world war, it describes a young fantasist with a job at a 'funeral furnisher' and a bedroom at his parents' – and longing for escape to the Good Life in London.It has been suggested that a local newspaper columnist parodied in both the book and the film bears a remarkable resemblance to the late-life Keith Waterhouse himself, when he was ensconced at the Daily Mail. [3]