‘As with Larkin, I prefer Priestley grumbling to most other writers enthusing.’ – Alan Bennett J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) was born in Yorkshire and fought in the Great War before going to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was a novelist, playwright, prolific essayist, broadcaster, scriptwriter, social commentator and man of letters. His twenty-eight short ‘Postscripts’, broadcast during the war, were considered more influential than Churchill’s. Priestley’s best-known play, An Inspector Calls, continues to be staged all over the world. Valerie Grove has been a journalist for fifty years, writing recently about Priestley in the New Statesman (2014) and the Guardian Review (2015). She read English at Girton College, Cambridge and has been on the staff of the Evening Standard, The Sunday Times and The Times, as an interviewer, reviewer and columnist. Her books include biographies of Dodie Smith, Laurie Lee, John Mortimer and Kaye Webb. She is a Tynesider by origin – but has lived in London since adolescence and has four children.