WILLIAM KENWORTHY
The talk that listeners are to hear tonight is remarkable for several reasons. It has simple sincerity. It was sent unsolicited to the B.B.C. out of the blue. The young man who wrote it and who is to speak it is on the dole.
William Kenworthy started his education at an elementary school in Manchester in 1914, and finished it at an elementary school in the Midlands in 1922. For twelve years-from 1922 until the summer of last year-he had jobs in offices and factories.
Six months ago he would have staked his life on getting work inside a month. All the sharp enduring of a man who would work if he could is his. Rebuffs; long waits with hundreds of others, no replies to letters. Idleness-in the way at home-everlasting failure. The spectre of tomorrow-next year.
He looks at his world, and that of the millions like him, in which no light, no hope gives any promise for tomorrow. What is to become of him and of them ? In what lies their salvation ? Youth looks ahead-and tries to find it.