No Discouragement An Autobiography

'If it is written well and with honest passion - be it love or hatred - the story of everyone's early years is always worth reading. It shows a unique human being taking shape. 'Chelly's' will rank alongside John Vaisey's Scenes From Institutional Life, Jimmy Boyle's A Sense of Freedom, and many other books of this kind.' - David Donnison, Centre for Housing Research and Urban Studies, University of Glasgow

'The best autobiographies describe an age as well as an author, a place as well as a personality, an idea as well as an individual. No Discouragement is far more than the story of A.H. 'Chelly' Halsey - sanitary inspector's apprentice, wartime airman, sociology student, academic-at-large, Oxford professor and, above all, Christian Socialist. It describes the life and times of a man who typifies an almost extinct species. There are still working-class boys, reared in 'the culture of respectability', who go on to achieve great academic distinction. But the pressures of modern society make it hard for them to preserve their tribal loyalties. Halsey retains the values of his childhood and expresses them without embarrassment.' - Roy Hattersley