One Green Bottle

Published in 1950, this novel was probably a bit risqué for its time. Condemned by the Anglican Bishop of Chester for its ‘explicitness', there is some sex in the story, but it couldn't be less explicit really. The author was a climber who made her start in the 1930s and was obviously familiar with the area of Wales in which this is set - Cae Capal.

Cathy Canning is a working class girl, with a boyfriend sentenced to two years in Borstal. Life in the slums of Birkenhead offers her little and a chance trip to Wales, and an introduction to rock climbing shows her an alternative to the life her mother leads.

The inhabitants of Tooley Street lived in the half-dark, like snails in the bottom of an area grating. They saw no green, and the sky was obscured for them by the smoke from the dockyards and the steamers on the river, and the fumes from the gasworks penetrated their lungs and kept their curtains permanently grey. The year wheeled through its glittering pageant and left them totally unaware.