The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (short story collection)

Stories

"The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" :

A teenager from Nottingham is convicted for robbing a bakery and sent to borstal where he finds solace in long distance running.

"Uncle Ernest" :

Ernest Brown the upholsterer was lonely. Suffering from shell-shock he feels guilty that he survived the trenches of World War I. His wife has left him and he has lost touch with his family. Then one morning whilst in a cafe two young girls sit at his table, disrupting his routine of introspection. He speaks to them and buys them cakes. In the weeks that follow he meets them regularly, buying them food and gifts; they give him a reason to live and become the children he never had. Then the police, tell him not to meet them again and he turns to drink. Sillitoe based the title character on a relative of his, Uncle Edgar also an upholsterer warned off by police from meeting two young girls he had befriended.

"Mr Raynor the Schoolteacher" :

Although ostensibly teaching teenage boys Religious Education, Mr Raynor's attentions are frequently drawn to the succession of young women working in Harrison's, the drapers shop opposite his classroom window. He reflects on their relative merits whilst trying to maintain discipline among his unruly charges... Again Sillitoe bases this story on his own experiences: a teacher at his own school who paid more attention to the shop-girls opposite than to his class.

"The Fishing-boat Picture" :

In Nottingham, Harry, a postman, looks back 28 years to when he married Kathy. The marriage lasted six years, then she left him to live with a housepainter. After ten years she returned, but she had lost the vitality she once had and seemed sad. She tells him the housepainter has died from lead-poisoning. She asks for the eponymous picture which Harry gives her, only to find later that she has pawned it. She returns every week for six years asking to borrow money which he is happy to give her for old times sake. She takes the photo again, and pawns it, but Harry doesn't buy it back this time. The story ends with her death by a lorry accident, and Harry finding out that the housepainter was in fact alive for those 6 years.

"Noah's Ark" :

Ten-year-old Colin and his cousin Bert visit the Goose Fair, but they only have fourpence between them. But the resourceful Bert uses dishonest tricks to get more money. Their evening ends on the 'Noah's Ark' a carousel of different animals where they attempt to evade the attendant to gain a free ride...

"On Saturday Afternoon"

A young boy helps a neighbour attempt to hang himself...

"The Match" :

After watching their team Notts County lose 2-1 to Bristol City, Lennox and Fred return to their neighbouring houses in The Meadows. Fred to his young wife of only a month; Lennox to a row with his wife which spills over into violence as Lennox loses his temper...

"The Disgrace of Jim Scarfedale" :

The story of Jim Scarfedale is told by a young neighbour as a cautionary tale against staying at home after childhood. Jim, always thought to be a mothers boy announces he is to marry, much to the surprise and consternation of his domineering mother. The marriage lasts six months after which Jim returns to his mother, leading to his eventual disgrace...

"The Decline and Fall of Frankie Buller" :

Alan Sillitoe recalls his childhood in Nottingham when as a child he part of a gang led by Frankie Buller, a man in his early twenties (though with a mental age much lower) which made frequent military-style raids into a nearby housing estate to do battle with a rival gang. But the advent of World War II put a stop to Frankie's exploits...

"The Rats"

Included in later editions of the book the poem originally appeared in The Rats and Other Poems (1960. W. H. Allen)