Bread of Heaven

Bread of Heaven is divided into two parts: a diary detailing a year in the life of a man trying to make babies, films and sense out of life, love, sex and sexuality; and a comedy feature film script, written by that same man, in the same year, about the British coalminers' strike of 1984. 'Bread of Heaven' (the film's original title) is used as a metaphor for the ups and downs of life and creativity, and as a symbol for the solidarity of people from different backgrounds in times of trouble. In the diary, the power of love and friendship, the delights and difficulties of sex, the pressures of conception, and the idyll of an Italian writing holiday are all interwoven in fast moving prose that offers humour and insight amid glimpses of despair. In the film, the light and dark sides of the miners' struggle are revealed, when a striking miners' family from Yorkshire goes to stay with a well-to-do, but supportive academic's family in Cambridge; unexpected bonds grow between the two families, as naivety and a budding teenage romance come face to face with the reality of clandestine state violence.

'Richard Woolley has the rare gift of keeping you anxious to know what happens next.'
David Robinson, The Times