Jim Allen (playwright)
| Jim Allen | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Allen 7 October 1926 Miles Platting, Manchester, Lancashire, England |
| Died | 24 June 1999 (aged 72) Middleton, near Manchester, England |
| Occupation | Playwright, builder's labourer, fireman (British Merchant Navy), miner |
| Nationality | British |
| Genre | Drama, fiction, screenplays |
| Notable works |
Coronation Street (1965-67) The Big Flame (1969), The Rank and File (1971) Days of Hope (1975) The Spongers (1978) Perdition (1987) Hidden Agenda (1990) Raining Stones (1993) Land and Freedom (1995) |
James "Jim" Allen (7 October 1926 – 24 June 1999) was a socialist playwright from Miles Platting, Manchester, Lancashire, best known for his collaborations with Ken Loach.
Allen was born in the Miles Platting area of Manchester, Lancashire, on 7 October 1926, the second child of Kitty and Jack Allen, Roman Catholics of Irish descent. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Allen left school at the age of 13 to work in a wire factory. He had various jobs during the war, before being called up into the Army in 1944. He joined the Seaforth Highlanders, and served with the British occupation forces in Germany. After leaving the army in 1947, he worked at a variety of jobs, including a builder's labourer, a fireman in the Merchant Navy, and a miner at Bradford Colliery in Bradford, Manchester.
During his military service, Allen was imprisoned for assault and a fellow inmate introduced him to the ideals of socialism. Allen was a passionate socialist for the rest of his life, although he detested Stalinism and refused to be associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain. In 1958 he joined the Socialist Labour League (SLL, the forerunner of the Workers' Revolutionary Party) led by Gerry Healy, a small group then pursuing entryist tactics within the Labour Party. The SLL objected to the close association between the CPGB and the National Union of Mineworkers, and Allen was a prominent campaigner for the SLL. In 1962 the Labour Party declared the SLL a "proscribed organisation", leading to Allen's expulsion from the party. He subsequently resigned his membership of the SLL, but did not join any other party.
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