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These Wild English

A family, a class, a country on fire

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These Wild English

By: Nicola Wilding
Narrated by: Harriet Dunlop
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'An unforgettable and moving portrait of working-class alienation ... I read it in one sitting' JAMES REBANKS

'Utterly compelling. I couldn't put this down! It picks you up and takes you on a journey that will leave you changed' REBECCA SMITH

A BOOKSELLER BOOK OF THE MONTH

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I'm England till I die. I know I am, I'm sure I am, I'm England till I die!

Mum's marching through towns yelling slogans with the EDL. Billy's in prison for armed robbery. And Nicola's left holding the family photos, asking: how did we get here?

These Wild English follows three generations of a working-class family as they struggle with the forces reshaping modern Britain. Nicola's mum grew up on a farm with seven siblings, part of a family the police knew well and the pubs knew better. But that landscape and community is long gone. As she navigates low-paid work and stormy marriages against a constant hum of economic decline, Mum begins looking for a new source of belonging. And the appeal of the far right will have consequences that stretch far beyond her family.

From the working farms of Cumbria to the windswept shores of Kent, via bleak barracks in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, this is a rare and tender reckoning with the love, rage, pride and loss of a community and a country. It will change how you see the divisions of our age.©2026 Nicola Wilding Cultural & Regional Women
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The author’s family history captures many aspects of the current UK condition (in all its dysfunctionality) - in a very empathetic way – that does not ‘other’ those whose opinions her much-loved family adopts and she seeks to understand. In her company we journey through: enclosure, post-war Labour, Thatcherism, New Labour, Brexit, Covid and onward. The author is a born story teller (and embroiderer?). This book provides a very-human social history of contemporary UK, and is always illuminating engaging and humorous. We need more books like this. Recommended.

A family saga that illuminates England in 2026

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It is told with real love and true understanding, this connected with me at every level.

beautiful telling of working class experience

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