Estates

Lynsey Hanley, the author of Estates, was brought up on a council estate in the 1960s. Familiar to British citizens and residents but perhaps not to all, council estates are publicly funded housing in the UK for those who can’t afford to buy or rent accommodation privately. After the Second World War, there was a massive increase in the building of council houses. By the end of the 1970s, a third of all housing in the UK was council housing. In Estates, Hanley tells her story of life on the estate and reflects on the successes and failures of council housing as a social experiment. This book tells the story of how the Queen’s poorer subjects lived in the 1960s and 1970s. It’s a fascinating and valuable historical testimony.