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Shelagh Delaney, the playwright who wrote A Taste of Honey, was born in Salford, Lancashire in 1939. When she reached the final year of primary school, Delaney had to take an exam called the Eleven Plus, which she failed. She was therefore unable to attend her local grammar school and was sent instead to Broughton Secondary School.

Later, her intelligence was noted by her teachers and she was given the opportunity to transfer to the grammar school. Unfortunately, by this time Delaney had become disillusioned with her education and in 1955 she left school without fulfilling her true potential or going on to higher education.

Instead, from the age of 16 she took a number of jobs, including working as an usherette in a cinema and working as a photographer’s laboratory assistant. However, writing had always been one of Delaney’s passions and after leaving school she began to write a novel.

Delaney was angry with much of the writing that was being produced in the 1950s. She felt that writers and playwrights were only interested in portraying middle class life and that no one was accurately writing about the daily struggles and emotions of working class people, particularly those members of the working classes who lived in the north of Britain.

Delaney decided to turn her novel into a play which she called A Taste of Honey. When she had completed the play she sent it to Joan Littlewood who ran the innovative Theatre Workshop Company in London.