The White Stuff

Even the fictional character Tracy Beaker’s social worker is a rather earnest woman who is seen by the children in the home as both a pain and a fool. And although Clare (in the Community) made it from cartoon to radio she is still enclosed in a frame of feckless, politically correct hypocrisy, from which much of the humour is drawn.

Felix works in a generic social work team based in the penthouse suite of the local authority’s only tower block, next to a roundabout. From their vantage point the team keep an eye on the town below and attempt to avoid unnecessary referrals. There is also a suspension, a sacking, a cover-up, a failure to produce appropriate  qualifications, an office affair, a right-on social worker, an old cynic, a reluctant senior, some staples and an office staff-room.

Armitage deploys a number of devices or tricks to keep the reader’s attention: look out for the flowers left at the overgrown graveside, and the suspended ending to a number of chapters. The significance of Felix’s wristwatch comes as a surprise, providing another example of the way in which his personal life is embedded in his professional life, a common strategy in police and medical dramas but strikingly unusual when deployed in the context of social work.

This is a book based on a realistic understanding and appreciation of social work written by an insider – Armitage qualified as a social worker and was a probation officer before turning his hand to poetry and writing books.

It blends the tragic and the comic and delivers in terms of humour and poignancy while providing good entertainment. You never know, reading it may become a performance indicator.