Starting on 5th June 1940, Priestley built up such a following that after a few months it was estimated that around 40 per cent of the adult population in Britain was listening to the programme. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. It is also a splendidly perceptive examination of what happens to a small group of office staff when the destructive force of a rapacious financial predator is unleashed among them.

Priestley, through the publisher, got a sight of Greene’s proofs, in which he was portrayed as ‘Quin Savory’, a vulgar, fourth-rate Dickensian, ‘Sold a hundred thousand copies .Good story, a con man totally messes up an odd little veneer business staffed by hopeless subordinates.

The firm is fighting for its life and its staff are gripped by the fear of insolvency and redundancy.Early 1970 saw the release of ‘Tell Me What I’ve Got To Do’ (Beckerman) b/w ‘When Will I See June Again’ (Shepherd) but it fared little better than the previous release. Less effectively, he tries to seduce the firm’s secretary, Miss Lilian Matfield, offering to take her on a dirty weekend to Brighton. His favourite among his books was for many years the novel Bright Day, though he later said he had come to prefer The Image Men.

Following the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Priestley joined the British Army, and was sent to France --in 1915 taking part in the Battle of Loos. JB Priestley was a huge seller back in the day (20s and 30s) but “nobody” reads him anymore, in the same way nobody listens to Rudy Vallee and his Connecticut Yankees or watches Shirley Temple movies (quite rightly!PO Box, Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan Republic, Belarus, Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Cook Islands, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Fiji, French Polynesia, Gabon Republic, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Greenland, Guam, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands Antilles, New Caledonia, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, Republic of the Congo, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Suriname, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican City State, Venezuela, Virgin Islands (U. And nobody finds fault with his English Journey even if fewer have read it than claim to have done so. Sid is sad because he wants to take part in the big drawing competition but can’t work out how the judges will ever get to see his work.