Eastwood in Nottinghamshire is the home of the DH Lawrence industry. There is his birthplace museum, a terraced house done out for visitors; the DH Lawrence Heritage Centre, Durban House; and the DH Lawrence Festival, of which more anon.
DHL based several of his novels around Eastwood - including Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Lady Chatterley - and is still a controversial figure. A few times over the years I've heard people from around Eastwood refer to him as "dirty Lawrence". Once I heard an ex-pitman rant about Lawrence because not only was his mother a teacher but his father was an "overman" - a foreman, and all "you outsiders" think that he represented the working class, and it was his father's job that set the family apart, not his mother's. But of course Lawrence does have his local fans, including the late Leslie Williamson, author of the novel Jobey which was set during the miners' strike of 1926.
Controversial or no, Eastwood businesses do what they can to capitalise on their best known son. I particularly admire the "Lawrence Snackery". Images of Lawrence's phoenix symbol abound, and there's an historic trail. The rows of cottages on Princes Road are reckoned to represent a decent view of what housing was like in his day.
Eastwood needs Lawrence by the look of things - the main street includes a variety of tattoo parlours, undertakers and charity shops as well as the usual suspects. You need never worry about cooking though, with ten takeaways to choose from on the main drag in the evening, and others only open daytime. At one time thousands of people would have worked in the local pits and such jobs are hard to replace. As Les Williamson once said, coal runs through the veins of Eastwood people.
The fifth DH Lawrence Festival has just started - see www.broxtowe.gov.uk/dhlheritage. I admire the organisation that can make a festival based on one man afresh every year. There are literary events (I have a hand in a couple of the smaller events) and walks in "Lawrence country". The latter are recommended, especially if they take in Minton's Tearooms at Greasley. There's also a good new exhibition on Lawrence and mining at Durban House, once the place that "young Bert" (as Lawrence was called) unhappily queued up for his father's wages.
Outside of the Lawrence centres the local library looks good after a major makeover, but the only place you can buy a book is a charity bookshop run by the local hospice.
At the Festival opening Sean Matthews from the Nottingham University DH Lawrence Research Centre asked how many of the audience of 70 were brought up in Eastwood; four only put their hands up. I could not help but feel that the town could do with another round of "Pagans" - the Eastwood circle of friends that included Lawrence, Jesse Chambers, Willy Hopkins and others to stir things up a bit in modern times.