In The Time of Bodley is a book that modern progressives will love to hate.

It is a book from the 1970s which contains and depicts, racism, sexism, homophobia and working class grit. It is a book that reflects a time long gone where inequality was the norm, where people used the launderette and when people still knocked on doors, to greet, to pay and to play.

Bodley is a spectre from the past but one, despite all its foul language and cigarette smoke, that reminds us that at the heart of all degradation there is still always love.