Fiction writer and dramatist, Barstow was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He attended Ossett Grammar School, then began writing in the 1950s. Along with Alan Sillitoe, John Braine and Keth Waterhouse he is considered one of the pioneers of the 1960s school of northern literary realism. His first great success was the novel A Kind of Loving, which became a film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Alan Bates. Since then he has produced eleven novels and three books of short stories, many set in the fictional mining town of Cressley, as well as TV scripts and material for the radio and theatre. Other works include the novels Ask Me Tomorrow (1962), and Joby, which was turned into a television play starring Patrick Stewart. For the last ten years of his life he made his home in South Wales with the distinguished radio dramatist Diana Griffiths. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Welsh Academy and an Honorary Master of Arts of the Open University.