by Brian Moylan
First published 2007
Workers stream into the quiet agricultural town of Abingdon from the depressed industrial regions of England and Wales. They join the small group of MG employees who made the move from Oxford when the car company relocated its operations. These skilled craftsmen and laborers must forge themselves into a unified workforce in an unfamiliar rural setting. The tension lies in whether this diverse group can overcome their different backgrounds and regional loyalties to create something lasting together. Some bring expertise from shuttered factories, others carry the original MG traditions from Oxford, while the local community watches this industrial transformation of their farming town. Through both peacetime car production and wartime manufacturing efforts, these men and women work to build not just automobiles but a new identity for themselves and their adopted home. The story captures how individual workers from scattered corners of Britain discovered they could create something larger than themselves when they came together in Abingdon.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, labor
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Abingdon, England, Oxford, Wales
Period: 20th-century
96 pages · Paperback · Veloce Publishing