Kemps presents: Polly Toynbee ‘An Uneasy Inheritance’

Join us for what promises to be an entertaining and intriguing evening with journalist, author and broadcaster Polly Toynbee.

As one of the most respected, prolific and razor sharp voices in social commentary, Polly Toynbee comes from a long line of radicals, reformers and scholars – all of whom have wrestled with the contradictions of being comfortably middle class while trying to further the cause of socialism.

In a new book, ‘An Uneasy Inheritance’, she examines her own family tree – which in addition to her writer father, Philip, and her historian grandfather, Arnold, contains everyone from the Glenconners to Jessica Mitford to Bertrand Russell and features ancestral home Castle Howard as a backdrop.

Through this frank family history, Polly shows us how entrenched class privilege remains in Britain, and that the country is a lot less socially mobile than we like to think.

A Guardian columnist and broadcaster, she was formerly the BBC’s social affairs editor.  She has written for the Observer, the Independent and Radio Times, and has been an editor at the Washington Monthly.

She has won numerous awards including a National Press Award and the Orwell Prize for Journalism and we are thrilled that she has agreed to come to Malton and share her new book with us.

Following the discussion there will be the opportunity to ask questions and a book signing.