Nicola Wilding's memoir *These Wild English* examines how her mother, Sandra Forsyth, became involved with far-right activism in her late 50s, joining English Defence League marches after years of hardship. Wilding, a documentary-maker specialising in poverty and working-class communities, uses her mother's story to explore a wider political question about how ordinary people are drawn towards extremism, resisting simplistic narratives that cast the white working class merely as manipulated aggressors.

The book traces Sandra's life across three generations, from a difficult 1960s childhood on a Cumbrian farm to her eventual radicalisation, which was triggered partly by the 2013 murder of soldier Lee Rigby and reinforced by Tommy Robinson's online videos. It situates her personal struggles – poverty, abusive relationships, a son's imprisonment and serious ill health – within broader historical events including Thatcher-era policies, the foot-and-mouth crisis, the financial crash, austerity and Brexit, joining other recent works examining Britain's alienated working classes.