Fame Is the Spur is a novel by Howard Spring published in 1940. It covers the rise of the socialist labour movement in Britain from the mid-19th century to the 1930s. The title comes from John Milton's poem "Lycidas": "Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise / (That last infirmity of noble mind) / To scorn delights, and live laborious days". [1]
The central character, Hamer Shawcross, starts as a studious boy in an aspirational working-class family in Ancoats, Manchester; he becomes a socialist activist and soon a career politician, who eventually is absorbed by the upper classes he had begun by combating.
In fact the story is rather subtler than this summary sounds, despite the fact that the author's sympathies obviously lie with Shawcross's friends and associates who remain faithful to the cause; however, many of the middle class and aristocratic characters are portrayed fairly sympathetically, and one character whose career parallels that of Shawcross in his rise from poverty to eminence is a market-boy who becomes a major capitalist. The book also gives a fair impression of the growth particularly of the Labour Party in Britain; historical characters, such as Keir Hardie, occasionally appear, and part of the book is taken up with the hardships of life for coal mining communities in South Wales at the turn of the 20th century. The treatment of the militant women's suffrage movement is especially detailed—there are graphic descriptions of imprisonment and forcible feeding of hunger strikers.
Hamer Shawcross is often taken to be based on Ramsay MacDonald; [2] though there are similarities in their careers, there are as many differences in their personalities.
A 1947 film, Fame Is the Spur , starring Michael Redgrave and scripted by Nigel Balchin ignores the subtleties to give a straightforward tale of a revolutionary's drift into self-satisfied conservatism as the years go on. [3] The name of the central character was changed in the film because Hartley Shawcross was at this date a prominent member of the Labour government.
A 1982 TV series starring Tim Pigott-Smith as Hamer Shawcross more accurately portrayed the subtleties of the book. The book was also dramatised as an eight-part BBC radio series starring Ian McKellen, first broadcast in 1979 and most recently on BBC Radio 4 Extra in June 2020.
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Howard Spring was a Welsh author and journalist who wrote in English. He began his writing career as a journalist but from 1934 produced a series of best-selling novels for adults and children. The most successful was Fame Is the Spur (1940), which was later adapted into a film starring Michael Redgrave and, later still a BBC TV series (1982) starring Tim Pigott-Smith and David Hayman.
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Fame is the Spur is a 1947 British drama film directed by Roy Boulting. It stars Michael Redgrave, Rosamund John, Bernard Miles, David Tomlinson, Maurice Denham and Kenneth Griffith. Its plot involves a British politician who rises to power, abandoning on the way his radical views for more conservative ones. It is based on the 1940 novel Fame Is the Spur by Howard Spring, which was believed to be based on the career of the Labour Party politician Ramsay MacDonald.
Fame Is the Spur is a British television series which first aired on the BBC in 1982. It was based on the 1940 novel Fame Is the Spur by Howard Spring. It depicts a socialist politician who betrays his early beliefs as he grows older, and was believed to be based upon the Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. It had previously been adapted as a film Fame Is the Spur by the Boulting Brothers in 1947.
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