Ten more Birmingham Poems

10 more #Birmingham inspired poems by the #BrummieBard Keith Bracey

Keith Bracey the Brummie Bard Birmingham & Black Country poet & writer

Birmingham Miscellany – 10 More Birmingham Poems

EDGBASTON – THE HOME OF TENNIS

Edgbaston is the place

Where they serve up many an Ace

Invented by Major Harry Gem:

A game for lithe athletic men

At 8 Ampton Road: ‘Fairlight’

You’d see rubber balls in flight

Men and women both

They’d hit balls with all their might

In clothing… Oh so bright!

A game played in Lilywhites

As played on a manicured lawn

In the summer of 1859

Young men and women courting

Eating, drinking, laughing

Eligible bachelors and young maidens

Playing on a mown green grass court

‘Good shot sir!’… they’d shout

With many a lascivious thought

The young women they did ‘Glow’

As they knocked balls to and fro

Over a rudimentary net

With strawberries and cream…..you bet!

Lawn tennis started to grow

Into the game that we now all know

Fred Perry, Bunny Austin,

Ann Jones, Virginia…

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Brummagem Song – 10 Birmingham Poems

Brummagem Song – 10 Birmingham inspired poems

Keith Bracey the Brummie Bard Birmingham & Black Country poet & writer

BRUMMAGEM’S SONG

If you’ve never been to Birmingham then you ought ta……….

It’s a grand city made up of many a quarter………

There is jewellery to be sold, diamonds, platinum and gold

Boulton’s silver to assay, precious gems from far away.

Guns were made nearby, helping soldiers fight and die

In the English Civil War we made musket, cannon and ball

A more powerful Lewis gun helped the British beat the Hun.

Mr Webley made a revolver fired by many a pitiful soldier

On a lighter note in The Theatre Quarter

The stage is set for talented daughters

The Rep, the Alex and Hippodrome…..

Encourage performers to make Birmingham their own

Chaplin, Burton and Olivier

Travelled here to perform their plays

Musicals, ballets and pantomime

Ensure cultural visitors have a good time

The NEC and NIA have changed their names along the way

The Good Food Show, Crufts and fashion…

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21 Birmingham inventions that changed the world.

21 #Birmingham inventions that changed the world #MadeinBrum #BrumIsBrill

Keith Bracey the Brummie Bard Birmingham & Black Country poet & writer

21 Birmingham inventions that changed the World.

1. THE PHOTOCOPIER

In 1779, the famous engineer James Watt patented a ‘letter copying machine’ to deal with the mass of paperwork at his business, and also created a special ink to use in the device.

This was the first widely used copier for offices and was such a success that it was in use for more than half a century. It’s considered to be the first ever photocopier.

Watt lived in Regent Place, Birmingham, from 1777 to 1790 and spent most of his time working with Birmingham manufacturer Matthew Boulton, of Soho House, on developing steam engines.

1. THE COOKER

In the late 18th or early 19th century, the Birmingham joiner John Heard invented a standalone cooking range or stove that was capable of roasting, boiling and baking – as well as heating the room it was in.

For the first time, the smoke…

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21 Birmingham inventions that changed the world.

21 Birmingham inventions that changed the World.

1. THE PHOTOCOPIER

In 1779, the famous engineer James Watt patented a ‘letter copying machine’ to deal with the mass of paperwork at his business, and also created a special ink to use in the device.

This was the first widely used copier for offices and was such a success that it was in use for more than half a century. It’s considered to be the first ever photocopier.

Watt lived in Regent Place, Birmingham, from 1777 to 1790 and spent most of his time working with Birmingham manufacturer Matthew Boulton, of Soho House, on developing steam engines.

2. THE COOKER

In the late 18th or early 19th century, the Birmingham joiner John Heard invented a standalone cooking range or stove that was capable of roasting, boiling and baking – as well as heating the room it was in.

For the first time, the smoke and fumes were carried off by a flue pipe that led to the chimney. Earlier models did not have flues and needed to be in a hearth right under the chimney.

3. THE BICYCLE BELL

John Richard Dedicoat invented the bicycle bell in Birmingham, with patents appearing as early as 1877. At last cyclists could make a distinctive and immediately recognisable warning sound to alert people that they were coming and therefore avoid accidents.

Dedicoat – who was an apprentice of James Watt – went on to become a bicycle manufacturer who made and sold the Pegasus bicycle.

4. ROLLER SKATES AND SKATEBOARD

Skateboard wheels owe their existence to Brummie toolmakers William Bown and Joseph Henry Hughes. In 1877, they patented their new Aeolus design for skate wheels that had a ring of ball bearings or rollers in the middle. The tiny steel balls stopped the parts of the wheel directly grinding against each other, reducing friction and creating smoother, faster motion.

Skateboards weren’t invented until the 1940s or 1950s in California, but these two men are responsible for the design of modern-day roller skate and skateboard wheels, as well as the use of similar ball-bearing systems in motorbikes and cars.

5. THE WHISTLE

Around 1875, a toolmaker called Joseph Hudson made the first whistle in a workshop at the side of his end-terrace home in St Mark’s Square, Birmingham. It was used for the first time in 1878 at the English Football Association Cup 2nd Round game when Nottingham Forest beat Sheffield 2-0, replacing the handkerchiefs previously waved by referees to attract players’ attention.

In 1883, Mr Hudson invented and manufactured the first police whistle for the Metropolitan force, so officers no longer had to rely on hand rattles.

And then a year later he came up with the first pea whistle – the Acme Thunderer – whose shrill sound carried over long distances and high noise levels. J. Hudson and Co. (Whistles) Ltd still exists today and is based in Barr Street, Birmingham.

6. THE X-RAY SCANNER

After X-rays were discovered in 1895, it was John Hall-Edwards who saw the medical potential of the new form of radiation.

In Birmingham on January 11, 1896, Hall-Edwards was first to use the radiation under clinical conditions by taking an X-ray image – or radiograph – of a needle stuck inside someone’s hand. On February 14, 1896, he was the first to use X-rays in a surgical operation. He also took the first X-ray of the human spine.

Although long-term exposure to the rays meant Hall-Edwards had to have his left arm amputated in 1908 because of radiation burns, he kickstarted a whole new field of medical science. Without Mr Hall-Edwards, there wouldn’t be any X-ray machines in hospitals today.

7. THE SMOKE DETECTOR

Everyone’s aware of today’s public safety campaigns for smoke alarms, and it was in Birmingham back in 1902 that George Andrew Darby patented the first electrical heat detector and smoke detector.

The proportion of UK households with a working smoke alarm has risen rapidly from 8 per cent in 1988 to 70 per cent in 1994 and 86 per cent in 2008.

But there’s still a way to go – Government statistics also reveal that 37 per cent of UK properties that suffered a fire in 2010/2011 did not have a smoke alarm. That’s 16,400 homes where a blaze could have been prevented. Figures also show that 112 people died in fires where there was no smoke alarm and 76 people died where the smoke alarm did not work.

8. THE MASS SPECTROMETER

If you’ve watched the forensic team on US TV show CSI, you’ll have seen them analysing crime scene samples using a mass spectrometer, which can detect the elements in an unidentified substance to find out what it is and what it contains.

It’s all down to Birmingham scientist Francis William Aston. He studied at the University of Birmingham and then continued his research at Cambridge, where he built the first fully functional spectrometer in 1919. In 1922, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discoveries he made using the machine.

9. THE VACUUM CLEANER

It was Gloucester engineer Hubert Cecil Booth who had invented the first motor-driven vacuum cleaner in London in 1901. Powered by oil and later by electricity, it was hired to clean premises such as shops, theatres, barracks and churches. However, it was so large it had to be transported by horse and carriage and left outside while the suction hose was fed through the windows. Not exactly practical for household use.

But in 1905, the idea was revolutionised in Birmingham. Walter Griffiths of 72, Conybere Street, Highgate, built the first portable vacuum cleaner intended as a domestic appliance, patenting it as ‘Griffiths’ Improved Vacuum Apparatus for Removing Dust from Carpets’. It was small, easy to carry and store and operated by a bellows-like mechanism. This was the first vacuum cleaner that resembled the popular models we know today.

10. THE CAR HORN

Beep, beep to Birmingham! Joseph Lucas’s Birmingham components manufacturing firm – which later became Lucas Industries and is today part of LucasVarity  – made an electric car horn in 1910 that became the industry standard, followed by a motorcycle horn the following year.

11. THE HAND GRENADE

A weapon of death and destruction might sound like a dubious claim to fame but grenades need to be safe when being handled and in 1915, William Mills developed a model – known as the Mills bomb – with a ‘pin-and-pineapple’ design, at his factory Mills Munitions in Bridge Street West, Birmingham. It had a trigger pin with a four-second fuse as well as a grooved surface with segments like a pineapple that offered a better grip so it wasn’t easily dropped.

Described as the first ‘safe grenade’, it was adopted by the British Army as its standard model in 1915 and about 75 million of the devices were made during the First World War.

Mills received £27,750 from the Government for his grenade, but had to pay income tax on the sum and claimed to have lost money on the invention.

12. THE WINDSCREEN WIPER

Birmingham hand grenade manufacturer Mills Munitions also produced some of Britain’s earliest aluminium golf clubs, a telescopic walking-stick seat – and patented the windscreen wiper in 1921.

Although the first ever wiper had been developed by American inventor Mary Anderson in 1903, Mills Munitions was the first British firm to patent a wiper design.

13. THE KETTLE

Fancy a cuppa? Without having to put some water on the stove and stand there watching and waiting? Back in 1922, Arthur L. Large – an engineer at Birmingham firm Bulpitt & Sons – thought exactly the same thing when he invented the immersed heating resistor, bringing in the era of plug-in kettles. That was followed in 1930 by the invention of a safety valve by the same company.

Although it wasn’t until 1955 that kettles had a thermostat that automatically switched them off when they boiled, electric kettles have changed very little – apart from some sleeker designs – since both Birmingham inventions appeared.

14. THE CAMERA

Cameras have been made in Birmingham since 1880 and in 1926 the Coronet Camera Company joined the marketplace. Most noted for its box cameras, it was established at 48, Great Hampton Street, Aston, by Frederick Pettifer. Coronet’s aim was to market a cheaper range of cameras.

Birmingham plastics manufacturer Edwin Elliott made cameras for Coronet and by 1933, it was recorded that 510,000 cameras had been sold. Coronet, which was later based at 308-310 Summer Lane, Newtown, closed in 1967.

It had links with another Birmingham firm, Standard Cameras, which made a cheap box camera called the Conway (similar to Coronet’s Ambassador model) but went out of business in 1955.

15. THE RECORD PLAYER

In 1932, Daniel McLean McDonald founded the company Birmingham Sound Reproducers, later known as BSR McDonald, and by 1961 it was employing 2,600 people. It made its own player – the Monarch Automatic Record Changer that could select and play 7”, 10” and 12” records at 33, 45 or 78rpm, changing between the various settings automatically.

BSR McDonald also supplied turntables and auto-changers to most of the world’s record player manufacturers, eventually gaining 87 per cent of the market.

A big spin-off development came in the early 1950s when London firm J & A Margolin started buying auto-changing turntables from BSR McDonald to use as the basis of its Dansette portable record player.

Over the next twenty years, Margolin manufactured more than a million of these players, and Dansette became a household name in Britain. With its lid, built-in speaker and carrying handle, the Dansette could be taken to parties so teenagers could listen to the latest music.

But Dansettes weren’t cheap – the first model cost 33 guineas (equivalent to £800 today) although later versions were a little more affordable at around a third of that price. Dansette ceased production in December 1969 as more advanced hi-fi systems arrived from Japan.

16. THE MICROWAVE OVEN

The microwave oven that is a vital gadget in today’s kitchens owes its existence to the invention of the first microwave power oscillators at the University of Birmingham during the Second World War.

Just over a month after the war ended, American inventor Percy Spencer patented the microwave oven on October 8, 1945. He developed the gadget when he found a chocolate bar in his pocket had melted when he was standing in front of radar equipment (which uses microwave radiation), while working on improving wartime communications for the US Department of Defence.

In 1947 the first commercially-produced microwave oven went on the market but it was nothing like today’s versions – it was 6ft tall, weighed 750 lbs, and cost up to $3,000. The first small, countertop microwave oven didn’t appear until 1967, at a cost of $495.

17. THE COMPUTER

Birmingham-born mathematician and computer scientist Conway Berners-Lee was part of the team which, in 1951, unveiled the Ferranti Mark 1, the world’s first ever commercially-available electronic computer. It’s worth noting that it was Second World War codebreaker and computer pioneer Alan Turing who had written the operating manual for the machine.

In 1954, Berners-Lee married computer programmer Mary Lee Woods, who was also from Birmingham. Woods had done a maths degree at the University of Birmingham and worked in the team that developed programs for the Manchester Mark 1, Ferranti Mark 1 and Mark 1 Star computers.

In 1955, the Lees become parents to Tim Berners-Lee who invented the World Wide Web and put forward the first proposal for it in March 1989.

18. THE PACEMAKER

Leon Abrams was a Birmingham heart surgeon who loved gadgets. And it was in 1960 that medical journal The Lancet announced that Abrams had just fitted the first variable-pace heart pacemaker, which he had designed with electronic engineer Ray Lightwood.

Abrams was a surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, setting up one of the UK’s top centres for lung and heart surgery and establishing open-heart surgery on the site.

The pacemaker he devised solved the infections and pain caused by earlier designs because it was in a small box outside the body. It was marketed by Lucas Industries as the Lucas-Abrams Pacemaker.

Abrams also developed an artificial heart valve, though that was less successful. He died in December 2012, at the age of 89.

19. THE MICROPHONE

Microphones have been around in some form since the 1870s, evolving over the years, and it was Birmingham-born inventor Michael Gerzon who teamed up with Peter Craven to invent the soundfield microphone in 1975. It could record in mono, stereo or multi-channel surround sound formats.

Calrec Audio turned the duo’s design into a product which was launched on the market in 1978 and later hived off into its own separate company, SoundField Ltd.

The SoundField range are considered by many to be the ultimate microphones for simultaneously recording in stereo and surround sound at large, live, outside events in sports stadiums and concert halls.

Gerzon also played a major role in the invention of Ambisonics, a complete surround sound technique that also records above and below the listener.

20. THE SAMPLER

The idea of ‘sampling’ – taking sounds from one recording and using them in a new production – is well-known in the modern music industry. It was here in Birmingham that the concept first took on life.

Frank, Norman and Les Bradley of Birmingham tape engineering company Bradmatic invented the Mellotron, a keyboard that was arguably the original sampler. Pressing the keys played recordings of real instruments, sound effects and voices that were stored on a piece of audio tape underneath. It was based on a similar American device called the Chamberlin that hadn’t been designed for commercial use by musicians.

With the support of BBC conductor Eric Robinson – who arranged the recordings that would go on the internal tape – and backing from magician and presenter David Nixon, a company called Mellotronics was formed and the first Mellotron keyboards were made in Aston in 1963, costing £1,000 at a time when a typical house was £2,000 to £3,000.

The device was popularised by The Beatles and became a crucial part of rock music. Birmingham band The Moody Blues made great use of the device, as did Genesis, Yes and many other groups. As synthesisers grew in popularity during the 80s, the Mellotron faded away but a new version came on the market in 1999.

21. THE PEN

In about 1822, John Mitchell, of 36, Newhall Street, Birmingham – in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter – invented a machine that pioneered the mass production of steel-nib pens, at a time when most people used quills for writing. The use of machinery increased production and cut costs and his thriving company Newhall Pen Works moved to Moland Street, Birmingham, in 1908.

Other companies followed and by the 1850s, Birmingham was a world centre for the pen trade. More than half the steel-nib pens manufactured in the world were made in Birmingham, where thousands of skilled craftsmen and craftswomen were employed in the industry.

In 1828, Birmingham manufacturer Josiah Mason developed a cheap, efficient slip-in nib that could be added to a fountain pen. Mason became the largest pen-maker in England but is less well-known than Mitchell because he was a supplier to stationer James Perry, whose names were on the pens instead. In 1875 Josiah founded Mason Science College, which became the University of Birmingham.

Making pens more efficiently and cheaply encouraged the development of education and literacy.

* An honourable mention must go to THE STAPLER. A patent was registered on March 5, 1868, by C.H. Gould of Birmingham, but this was not the first appearance of this piece of office equipment. American inventor George McGill had exhibited his own version of a paper fastener the year before and then in 1879 unveiled his McGill Single-Stroke Staple Press, which is widely regarded as the forerunner of the modern stapler we know today.

 

50 Fascinating Facts about Birmingham

1.CITY OF 1,000 TRADES

Birmingham has always been a hive of activity and was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, which was set in motion by the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a group of the greatest scientists, inventors and manufacturers of the time who met to exchange ideas and knowledge at Matthew Boulton’s home Soho House in Handsworth.

 

By 1791, Birmingham was being hailed as the first manufacturing town in the world, and after it gained city status in 1889, it was named the City of A Thousand Trades because of the huge variety of companies based here. It’s also been called the Workshop of The World and the First City of the Empire.

 

It was at The Soho Manufactory, the first factory in the world – that assembly-line mass production was created by pioneering industrialist Matthew Boulton. It was built on Handsworth Heath in 1766 and it made a range of goods including buttons and buckles and was home to the first steam-powered mint. The Soho Mint opened in 1788 and used eight steam-driven machines designed by Boulton to strike up to 84 coins a minute.

 

The Czech composer Anton Dvorak ((1841-1904) came to Birmingham and said: “I’m here in this immense industrial city where they make excellent knives, scissors, springs, files and goodness knows what else, and, besides these, music too. And how well! It’s terrifying how much the people here manage to achieve.”

 

2. ECONOMIC CENTRE

Today, figures from Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that Birmingham is the largest centre in Great Britain for employment in the sectors of public administration, education and health, and the second largest centre outside London for employment in financial and other business services.

 

Four FTSE100 companies have their HQ in the Birmingham area – the largest concentration of such firms outside London and the South-East. Birmingham’s wider metropolitan economy is the second largest in the UK with a GDP (gross domestic product – the value of all goods and services) of £68 billion.

 

According to the rankings of the Globalization & World Cities Research Network, Birmingham is a beta level city – the third highest ranking in the country after London and Manchester. Birmingham has the highest level of entrepreneurial activity outside London, with more than 16,000 business start-ups registered in 2013. The city is behind only London and Edinburgh for private sector job creation between 2010 and 2013.

 

3. MORE CANALS THAN VENICE

Birmingham has 35 miles of canal compared with 26 miles of canal in Venice. And the entire Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) is a network of waterways connecting Birmingham and the Black Country. The BCN comprises 114 miles of waterways less than the 174 miles it had at its peak in the 18th century. More cubic metres of water flow through Birmingham’s canals than any other city in the world.

 

4. MORE TREES THAN PARIS

Birmingham has “nearly 600 parks and public open spaces” compared with 400 in Paris. Birmingham City Council gave a more exact number with a figure of 571 parks and open spaces with more than 3,500 hectares of public accessible space, and 250 miles of urban brooks and streams. Birmingham City Council estimates that there are six million trees in the city. The 2,400-acre Sutton Park in Sutton Coldfield is the largest Urban Park in Europe.

 

5. GERMAN MARKET

Birmingham’s annual German market – officially the Frankfurt Christmas Market – is the largest outdoor Christmas market in the country and the biggest outside Germany and Austria. It attracts more than five million visitors, earning £90 million for the city, and is even bigger than the market staged in German capital Berlin.

 

6. DIVERSITY

Birmingham is the most culturally mixed city in the UK, with 33.3 per cent non-white according to 2007 figures, compared with London’s 30.7 per cent.

Outside London, Birmingham has the UK’s largest Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist communities, the second largest Hindu community and the seventh largest Jewish community. The city’s Sikh Vaisakhi celebrations are the largest in Europe.

 

7. CONFERENCES

Birmingham is one of the UK’s top conference destinations. According to Core Cities, the National Exhibition Centre Group (which has four venues in Birmingham: the NEC, International Convention Centre, LG Arena and NIA) attracts more than 4 million visitors a year. That’s 42 per cent of the UK’s total exhibition trade and major conferences.

 

8. TELEVISION & RADIO

Birmingham has a long tradition of TV and Radio production with many shows recorded in studios in Birmingham or filmed on location in the city, while others have been produced here but filmed elsewhere. Among the programmes to come from Birmingham are Doctors, Hustle, Crossroads, Boon, New Faces, Spitting Image, Pot Black, Gangsters, Dalziell and Pascoe and Tiswas, plus the game shows The Golden Shot, Bullseye and Blockbusters.The Archers, the world’s longest running radio soap, is recorded in Birmingham for BBC Radio 4.

 

9. ST PATRICK’S DAY PARADE

Birmingham’s St Patrick’s Day Parade is the third biggest in the world, after New York and Dublin with more than 80,000 people turning out to celebrate the occasion. Birmingham has a large Irish community dating back to the Industrial Revolution when Irish people, known as ‘Navvies’ moved here to work in the construction  of canals, railways and factories and is estimated to have the largest Irish population in the UK. The city has the UK’s only Irish Quarter, centred on Digbeth and Deritend.

 

10. MUSIC

Birmingham is the birthplace of Heavy Metal, with Black Sabbath and coming from Aston in Birmingham Tony Iommi learned to play guitar in a different way following an industrial accident that removed the tips of two of his fingers. He tuned the guitar down and relied on power chords, something guitarist Geezer Butler also did and together they produced the classic sound of Heavy Metal. Subsequent Heavy Metal bands Napalm Death and Godflesh also hail from Birmingham. Birmingham also boasts Dave Pegg  (Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention), Martin Barre (Jethro Tull), and Blaze Bayley (Wolfsbane). Other music acts from Birmingham include ELO, Duran Duran, UB40, The Moody Blues, Fuzzbox, Ocean Colour Scene, The Move, Toyah Wilcox, Joan Armatrading, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Ruby Turner, Fine Young Cannibals, The Streets, Musical Youth, Jamelia and Pato Banton. Mother’s Club in Erdington was voted the world’s best rock venue in 1969 and 1970, with a Blue Birmingham Civic Society plaque unveiled in 2013 to commemorate the iconic venue where such acts as Pink Floyd, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Black Sabbath, The Who and Led Zeppelin played.

 

In the 1960s, Birmingham was the birthplace of modern Bhangra and is also the centre of the UK’s Asian music industry. Birmingham is the global centre of Bhangra music with almost 90 per cent of it made here.

 

In the classical world, Worcestershire-born composer Edward Elgar was the first conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra (later the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: CBSO) when it was officially founded in November 1920. Elgar was also the first Professor of Music at Birmingham University. In 2002, the CBSO won the most prestigious Record of the Year prize at the Gramophone Awards, the classical counterpart to the Oscars. The CBSO’s most famous conductor is Sir Simon Rattle, for whom Symphony Hall was built, often cited as one of the best classical music concert halls in the world.

 

11. CINEMAS

Oscar Deutsch, born in Balsall Heath and the son of a scrap metal dealer, opened the first ever Odeon cinema in Perry Barr in 1930. Deutsch was a master of marketing with Odeon standing for ‘Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation’.

 

Star City now has the UK’s largest cinema complex with thirty screens. Six screens are devoted to Asian films, making this the largest Bollywood movie centre in Europe. The Giant Screen cinema at Millennium Point has the largest screen in the Midlands (72ft wide, 40ft high) & the second largest in the UK.

 

The Electric Cinema in Station Street at the back of Birmingham’s revamped New Street Railway Station is the UK’s oldest working cinema dating from 1909.

 

12. TRANSPORT

As well as its famous waterways, Birmingham is home to the Gravelly Hill interchange, better known as Spaghetti Junction the best known motorway junction in the UK. The M6 passes through Birmingham on the longest bridge in the UK the Bromford Viaduct Birmingham was also the terminus for both of the world’s first two long-distance railway lines – 1837’s 82-mile Grand Junction Railway & the 112-mile London and Birmingham railway of 1838 whose terminus at Curzon Street was the first railway station. New Street station is the busiest train station in the UK outside London In addition, the Number 11 Outer Circle bus route is the longest urban bus route in Europe, reaching a length of 28 miles.

 

13. TENNIS

Tennis originated in Birmingham when, in 1859, Harry Gem, Clerk to the Birmingham Magistrates, and his friend Augurio Perera, a Spanish merchant, combined elements of racquets and the Basque ball game Pelota on the lawn of Perera’s home at 8 Ampton Road, Edgbaston. The oldest surviving club Lawn Tennis club in the world is the Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society, which pre-dates The All England Club by 3 weeks.

 

14. J.R.R. TOLKIEN

Acclaimed author JRR Tolkien, born in Bloemfontein South Africa, lived in Birmingham as a child variously in Kings Heath, Hall Green, Rednal and Edgbaston and attended King Edward’s School in New Street. Sarehole Mill, Moseley Bog, Perrott’s Folly, Edgbaston Waterworks Tower, Birmingham University Clock Tower and the nearby Lickey Hills in Birmingham inspired his famous works The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit.

 

15. JEWELLERY

The Jewellery Quarter is Europe’s largest concentration of jewellery businesses, and produces 40 per cent of jewellery made in the UK. It has the largest School of Jewellery in Europe, and the world’s largest Assay Office, which hallmarks about 12 million items a year. At its height in the early 1900s, the Jewellery Quarter employed more than 30,000 people. About 3,000 people work there today

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16. FOOD & DRINK

Birmingham has five Michelin-starred restaurants, more than any other city in the UK outside London. Glynn Purnell, Adam Stokes, Luke Tipping, Richard Turner and David Carter are the Chef Patrons.

Birmingham is the birthplace in 1977 of the Balti – a type of curry served in a metal bowl (karahi) & home to the Balti Triangle, an area encompassing Sparkbrook, Balsall Heath and Moseley, where there are more than 100 Asian restaurants. Well-known food brands that originated in the city include Bird’s Custard, Typhoo tea, Cadbury’s chocolate and HP Sauce. Alfred Bird created Bird’s Instant Custard in 1837 as his wife was allergic to eggs used to thicken earlier versions of the dessert.

 

In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea and in 1870 started a grocery/pharmacy business with his son John in High Street, Birmingham. It was in 1903 that John’s son, John Sumner Jr, created Typhoo Tea – taking the name from the Chinese word for doctor after his sister said she had found relief for her indigestion by drinking a brew made from the tiniest particles of tea leaf, rather than the usual large leaf variety. Sumner Jr sold the tea pre-packaged rather than loose. Typhoo became one of the largest makers of teabags in the UK.

 

Chocolate giant Cadbury began when John Cadbury opened a grocery shop in Bull Street Birmingham in 1824. Among the products he sold cocoa and drinking chocolate which he prepared using a pestle and mortar. It was in 1831 that he started the Cadbury manufacturing business in a warehouse in Crooked Lane. In 1847, it moved into a larger factory in Bridge Street and when that site became too small, a new works was built at Bournville. The Quaker company produced its first chocolate bars in 1897 and Cadbury’s Dairy Milk in its purple wrapper is an icon.

 

17. UNIVERSITIES & EDUCATION

Birmingham is the youngest city in Europe with 25 year olds and under accounting for nearly 40 per cent of its population.  Birmingham has five universities: Aston, Birmingham, Birmingham City University, Newman University College & University College Birmingham. Birmingham University was founded in 1900 by Joseph Chamberlain and was the first ‘Redbrick’ University. The region as a whole produces over 111,000 graduates each year making it the second largest student area in the UK. In 2011 Birmingham had more than 78,000 students living in the city during term-time more than any other city in the UK outside London. The national educational charity University of the First Age was founded in Birmingham by Professor Tim Brighouse in 1996.Birmingham Business School founded in 1902 is the oldest graduate-level business school in the UK.

 

18. MUSEUMS AND ART

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery holds the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art in the world as well as Europe’s finest collections of ceramics and fine metalwork. Also on display there is the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found. It consists of more than 3,500 items with over 5kg of gold, 1.4kg of silver and 3,500 cloisonné garnets. BMAG also contains the largest complete bronze sculpture of its kind in the world in the Sultangani Buddha found in the North Indian town of Sultangani during the construction of the East Indian Railway & dates from 700-800 AD. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts has been described as one of the finest small art galleries in the world. Birmingham Science Museum Thinktank, has the world’s oldest working steam engine and the UK’s first purpose-built digital planetarium.

 

19. THE POSTAL SYSTEM/STAMPS

Birmingham schoolteacher Rowland Hill established the first modern postal system towards the end of 1839. He invented the first postage stamp the Penny Black designed by artist William Mulready featuring Queen Victoria in May 1840.

 

20. DNA & SCIENCE

In 1962, the physicist and molecular biologist Maurice Wilkins received a Nobel Prize for his work revealing the structure of DNA as one of the three (the others being James Watson and Francis Crick) who became known as the Code Breakers. Wilkins was brought up in Birmingham and educated at King Edward’s School, going on to develop wartime radar screens at Birmingham University before his involvement in genetics research. Wilkins, Crick and Watson were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. The former Forensic Science Service, which was based on Birmingham Business Park in Marston Green, pioneered the use of large-scale DNA Profiling. It set up the world’s first DNA database in April 1995.

 

21. THE LIBRARY OF BIRMINGHAM

The new Library of Birmingham which cost £189million is the largest public library in the UK, the largest public cultural space in Europe and the largest regional library in Europe.

 

22. BANKS & BUILDING SOCIETIES

England’s first municipal bank was set up in Birmingham by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, eldest son of the ‘Father of Birmingham’ Joseph Chamberlain. The Birmingham Corporation Savings Bank later Birmingham Municipal Bank was set up to raise money for the First World War effort. It opened on September 29, 1916. The Midland Bank and Lloyds Bank were also founded in Birmingham. The world’s first building society – Ketley’s Building Society – was founded in Birmingham in 1775 by Richard Ketley who was the landlord of The Golden Cross pub.

 

23. HEALTH & MEDICINE

William Withering, a physician at Birmingham General Hospital, discovered the use of digitalis an extract from the foxglove plant as a heart drug and in 1785 published a paper on his findings. A member of the Lunar Society of distinguished scientists, he lived at Edgbaston Hall and later in Sparkbrook where he died in 1799.

 

In Birmingham on January 11, 1896, John Hall-Edwards was the first man to use X-rays under clinical conditions by taking an X-ray image – or radiograph – of a needle embedded in someone’s hand. On February 14, 1896, he was the first to use X-rays in a surgical operation. He also took the first X-ray of the human spine.

Birmingham surgeon Dr Joseph Sampson Gamgee invented the surgical dressing called Gamgee Tissue – cotton wool between two layers of gauze – in 1880. His name became an inspiration for The Hobbit character Sam Gamgee in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

 

 

Birmingham University’s Rupert Billingham and Peter Medawar set out the key procedures and principles of skin grafting.In 1950, the first hole-in-the-heart surgery was carried out at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and in 1960 it was announced that Queen Elizabeth Hospital surgeon Leon Abrams had fitted the first variable-pace pacemaker In 1952, a team of researchers in Birmingham made the link between wheat gluten and Coeliac disease and developed gluten-free diets.

 

24. FOOTBALL AND SPORT

Birmingham businessman and Aston Villa FC Chairman Sir William McGregor founded the Football League, the world’s first football league competition. In 1888 that he suggested that 10 or 12 of England’s top clubs get together to arrange fixtures and the English Football League was formed.in Birmingham and the city is where the first FA Cup was made. The very first trophy had been produced in Sheffield but was stolen from a display window in Birmingham in 1895 after Aston Villa had won the cup. The second trophy – and the oldest one surviving today – was a replica of the first and made by Vaughton’s of Birmingham, which still exists in Well Street,.Birmingham was first British city to be named National City of Sport by the Sports Council and held the IAAF World Indoor Athletics Championships at the National Indoor Arena in 2003.

 

25. INNOVATION

Of the 4,000 inventions copyrighted in the UK a year, 2,800 come from the Birmingham area. Peter Colegate of the Patent Office said: “Every year, Birmingham amazes us by coming up with thousands of inventions. It is impossible to explain but people in the area seem to have a remarkable ability to come up with, and have the dedication to produce, ideas.” Among the inventions to come from Birmingham were James Watt’s paper copier, the smoke detector, household vacuum cleaner, cooker, mass spectrometer and microwave oven.

 

It was in 1856 that Alexander Parkes created the first viable man-made plastic which he named eponymously ‘Parkesine’. This led to the development of celluloid film also by Parkes so indirectly Birmingham could be said to have created the world-wide medium of film and the film and cinema industry as well as the large-scale production of chemicals and the chemical industry.

 

In 1929, Brylcream was created by County Chemicals at the Chemico Works in Bradford Street, Birmingham. Joseph Priestley who was a prominent member of Birmingham’s Lunar Society and a Unitarian preacher whose inflammatory sermons advocating Revolution earned him the name: ‘Gunpowder Joe’ was the first man to isolate Oxygen in 1787.

 

Birmingham surgeon John Wright experimented with electricity in his spare time and discovered a process for coating metal objects in gold and silver. Wright’s associates George Elkington and Henry Elkington were awarded the first patents for electroplating in 1840. These two founded the electroplating industry in Birmingham and the technique spread across the world.

 

The world’s first pneumatic tyre was made by John Boyd Dunlop in 1888. He sold the rights to Harvey du Cross Jr who founded the Dunlop Rubber Company in 1889. The former tyre manufacturing plant Fort Dunlop was built in 1916 and was at one time the largest factory in the world, employing more than 3,200 people. In 1922, Dunlop invented a tyre that lasted three times longer than any other, and Dunlop tyres have helped many drivers and their cars to victory at the Grand Prix, Le Mans, Formula 1 and British and world land speed records.

 

It was in Birmingham that William Murdock discovered the use of gas for street lighting. In 1798, he used gas to provide internal lighting for Soho Foundry a factory making James Watt’s steam engines in Smethwick,and in 1802 he lit the outside of the building in a public display that amazed local residents. In 1806, Birmingham inventor Joseph Pemberton lit the outside of his own factory with gas and this eventually led to the first public street lighting by gas which was in London in 1807. It was in 1818 that Birmingham had its first street lighting by gas, with the lights made in Gas Street off Broad Street

 

26. PENS

By the 1850s, Birmingham was a world centre for the pen trade. More than half the steel-nib pens manufactured in the world were made in Birmingham, where thousands of skilled craftsmen and craftswomen were employed in the industry. In 1828 Birmingham manufacturer Josiah Mason developed a cheap, efficient slip-in nib that could be added to a fountain pen. Mason became the largest pen-maker in England and in 1875 he founded Mason Science College, which became Birmingham University. Making pens more efficiently and cheaply encouraged the development of education and literacy around the world

 

 

27. PLANES

In 1940, just after the start of the Second World War, Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory started production of the Spitfire fighter plane and became the largest Spitfire factory in the UK, producing up to 320 aircraft per month. When production ended at Castle Bromwich in June 1945, a total of 12,129 Spitfires had been built – more than half of the 20,000 ever produced.

 

28. WEATHER MAPS

Sir Francis Galton, born in Birmingham in 1822, is credited as the first to apply statistical methods to science. In doing so, he gave birth to the science of meteorology by creating the first weather map, compiled using data from all of Britain’s weather stations in October 1861. A half-cousin to Charles Darwin, whose grandfather Erasmus Darwin from Lichfield near Birmingham had been a prominent member of Birmingham’s Lunar Society, Galton  also coined the term Eugenics (improving human genetics through controlled breeding), devised a method for classifying fingerprints and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities.

 

29. THE MINI AND THE MOTOR CAR

The Mini, an icon of the swinging Sixties, was manufactured at Birmingham’s Longbridge plant from 1959 to 2000. In 1999 the Mini was voted the most influential car of the 20th century, and in 2014 it was named Britain’s favourite car of all time in a survey by motoring magazine Autocar. By the late 1960s, Longbridge was the biggest car plant in the world and employed around 30,000 workers.

And it all started here in Brum. It was in 1895 in Birmingham that Frederick William Lanchester built the first petrol-driven four-wheeled car in Britain. He also invented the accelerator pedal and the carburettor.

Lanchester, who had been working at the Forward Gas Engine Company in Saltley, Birmingham, had first devised an engine that ran on petrol rather than gas. As part of that, he invented the carburettor to get the correct mix of air and fuel.

Having tried the new engine in a boat and created Britain’s first motorboat, he decided to design a four-wheeled vehicle that would run on petrol. He worked on the car at workshops in Ladywood Road, Fiveways, and then he and his brothers set up a factory in Montgomery Street, Sparkbrook, which still exists to make the cars so they could be sold to the public.

 

30. GUNS

Birmingham’s Gun Quarter was for many years the centre of the world’s gun manufacturing industry. In 1865 nearly 10,000 people were employed in the city’s gun industry.

During the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), production soared as more than three million guns were made in the city, with Birmingham supplying two thirds of the guns used by the British army.

 

31. BIKES & MOTORBIKES

Hercules Cycle and Motor Company, founded in 1910 in Aston, had become the world’s biggest manufacturer of bicycles by the end of the 1930s, when six million had been made.

Evolving out of Birmingham’s bicycle industry, firms such as Norton and BSA made Birmingham an international centre for motorbike manufacture.

BSA – the Birmingham Small Arms Company – began as a gun-maker founded in Birmingham’s Gun Quarter in 1861 before venturing into bicycles, motorbikes and cars. BSA was at one time the largest motorcycle producer in the world and Birmingham bikes won many awards for speed and quality. The BSA Bantam was a popular small motorcycle made in Birmingham which is still produced under licence in India today.

 

32. CUTLERY

Birmingham firm Arthur Price was the first company to make spoons and forks from chromium plate, the forerunner of stainless steel. By the 1950s, it had become the largest manufacturer of stainless steel cutlery in the UK.

In April 1912, A. Price & Co. Ltd, as the company was then known, was based in a small factory in Conybere Street, Birmingham. The firm was celebrating its 10th anniversary with a commission to supply premium cutlery for use on the world’s newest and most luxurious ocean liner, the S.S. Titanic.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s tragic maiden voyage, Arthur Price recreated the Panel Reed cutlery that was used in the ship’s First Class accommodation. In 1976, the firm was commissioned to design and produce the cutlery for Concorde.

 

33. CHARLES DICKENS

Famous novelist Charles Dickens gave the first public performance of A Christmas Carol in Birmingham Town Hall in December 1853, 10 years after its publication. He performed it over three hours 15 minutes in front of a crowd of 2,000 local people – taking only a 10-minute break for a quick swig of beef tea.

 

34. ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE/SHERLOCK HOLMES

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, lived and worked in Aston for several months each year from 1879 to 1882. He was working as a pharmacy assistant in the breaks between his studies at Edinburgh University.

Birmingham’s Sherlock Street – where Doyle is said to have bought a violin – and the surname of Birmingham printer John Baskerville were obvious influences on his later literary works, with the first Sherlock Holmes story (A Study in Scarlet) published in 1886 and The Hound of the Baskervilles appearing in 1901. Doyle’s time here is commemorated by a blue plaque on the building on the site of his former home at 63 Aston Road North.

 

35. THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE

The Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry, creator of The Railway Series about Thomas the Tank Engine, was a curate at King’s Norton, Birmingham, from 1940 to 1946. While living there in 1943, he invented stories featuring trains – based on his experiences hearing the engines puffing along the railway line at Kings Norton – to entertain his son during a bout of measles.

In 1945, Awdry wrote his first book featuring his locomotive characters. He made a model train for his son and decided to call it Thomas. His son wanted to hear stories about Thomas, and these were published in his book Thomas the Tank Engine in 1947.

 

36. WASHINGTON IRVING

The American-born author of ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ which was made into a film starring Johnny Depp and ‘Rip Van Winkle’ lived and wrote for a time in Birmingham during the early18th century.

 

37. BARBARA CARTLAND

The incredibly prolific author of romantic novels was born in Edgbaston in Birmingham. She wrote hundreds of books, mostly of the romantic fiction variety.

 

 

38. LEE CHILD

The former King Edward’s School Edgbaston schoolboy lost his job with Granada TV in Manchester in 1994 and became an author. His books about his hero Jack Reacher, the 6 feet 5 inch and 250 pounds one-man war machine have sold over 100 million copies. The books have become a film franchise with the diminutive Tom Cruise playing the giant Reacher.

 

39 RJ ELLORY

A spell in a Young Offenders Institution with his brother for stealing a chicken from a convent convinced Roger Ellory to turn his life around and become a writer. He gleaned most of his knowledge about America, which plays host to his crime novels from 1970’s TV shows like Starsky & Hutch, The Rockford Files, Cannon and Cagney & Lacey. His most famous crime thriller is ‘A Quiet Belief in Angels’ and he has written 21 books.

 

40. JONATHAN COE

Another former King Edward’s School Edgbaston pupil, albeit somewhat older than Lee Child, Coe’s novel of growing up in 1970’s Birmingham: ‘The Rotter’s Club’ with its background of the Birmingham pub bombings and the strikes at the Austin Rover car plant at Longbridge struck a chord with readers and was turned into a successful BBC TV series. Other novels such as ‘The Closed Circle’ have been equally successful.

 

 

 

41. JIM CRACE

Moseley author Jim Crace has enjoyed great literary success and has been nominated for The Booker Prize, the best known literary prize in the UK.

 

42. LAND ROVER

Four wheel drive vehicles began with the great Land Rover Defender in the 1950’s and the success of the company continues today now it is owned by Indian conglomerate TATA with premium products like The Range Rover Sport and The Range Rover Evoque

 

 

43. KASH THE FLASH GILL

Handsworth-born Kash Gill was the very first Asian fighter to become a World Champion in a Contact sport in his chosen discipline of kick-boxing where he is a four-time World Champion. Kash’s titles pre-date those of British-born Asian World Boxing Champions Naseem Hamed and Amir Khan.

 

 

44. SIR MICHAEL BALCON

Birmingham’s ‘Film Triumvirate’ is made up of Sir Michael Balcon, Brummie Grammar Schoolboy and Britain’s first ‘Film Mogul’ who at one point worked for Louis B. Mayer at MGM, Victor Savile, who bankrolled Balcon and Oscar Deutsche who founded the ODEON Cinema Chain in Birmingham in the 1930’s were Brum’s three film ‘movers and shakers’ All three could at one time be found on a ride on the Inner Circle number 8 ‘Corporation Buzz’ in Birmingham’s inner city!

 

Birmingham Grammar School Boy Sir Michael Balcon founded The Ealing Studios which gave us those great ‘Ealing Comedies’: ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’, ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’, ‘Passport to Pimlico’, ‘The Ladykillers’  and ‘Whiskey Galore’ should be more celebrated in Birmingham as possibly Britain’s greatest film maker, the man who discovered Alfred Hitchcock, whom many think is Britain’s best film maker…..?

 

Balcon went to my old school George Dixon Grammar School for Boys from 1906 when the school opened until 1912 when he left after his father a Jewish tailor at 116 Summer Lane, Aston became ill and could no longer afford to send the young Balcon to school

After leaving school in 1912 Balcon joined up in 1914 at the outbreak of The Great War and tried to establish some of the early ‘Birmingham Pals’ Regiments in The Great War but ironically could not fight and serve himself due to defective eyesight……….

 

Balcon also named his ‘Everyman Copper Hero’ and most enduring character PC George Dixon of ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ after his old school which was named after Education Reformer and the founder of Edgbaston High School for Girls: George Dixon MP, a direct contemporary of Joseph Chamberlain MP the founder of municipal Birmingham.

 

PC George Dixon first appeared in the 1949 Ealing Studios film: ‘The Blue Lamp’ where he was shot in a bungled cinema robbery by a young Rank Starlet on loan to the Ealing Studios Dirk Bogarde….remember him?

 

PC George Dixon was miraculously reincarnated in 1952 in the first ‘Police Procedural’: ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ where the young PC Dixon pounds a tough East End Docklands Beat around ‘Dock Green’ keeping law and order with his own brand of homespun bonhomie and gentle kindness and good sense, with a ‘clip round the ear’ for young urchins rather than a spell in ‘The Blue Brick’ (‘nick’)

 

PC Dixon’s cheery Saturday evening greeting: ‘Evening All’ has gone down in TV folklore.

 

‘Dixon of Dock Green’ ran from 1952 until 1976 when Jack Warner, the actor who played PC Dixon for all those years became too old for the role.

 

Sir Michael Balcon would premiere his Ealing Films to the Cinema Club at his old school

 

There are also links to Hollywood as his Grandson is possibly the greatest ever screen actor the three-time Oscar winner for ‘Best Actor’ Daniel Day-Lewis.

 

 

45. GEORGE DIXON

George Dixon was a former Lord Mayor of Birmingham of the 1870’s and a renowned educational pioneer in the city. He founded Edgbaston High School for Girls in Westbourne Road to educate young women, the daughters of artisans and craftsmen in Birmingham.

 

The George Dixon Grammar Schools were built in 1906 to honour his memory on the mile-long City Road, built at the turn of the 20th century during the municipal boom in Birmingham inspired by Joseph Chamberlain who at that time founded the University of Birmingham also in Edgbaston.
George Dixon to those ‘Baby Boomers’ who grew up in 1960’s Britain meant a kindly, avuncular copper who pounded the beat in Dock Green in East London on black and white TV on BBC1 on Saturday evenings.
Did you know how PC George Dixon got his name…?
Sir Michael Balcon, then Head of the Ealing Studios was a former pupil of the George Dixon Grammar School for Boys in City Road, Edgbaston in Birmingham.
Ealing Studios released a film called: ‘The Blue Lamp’ in the early 1950’s starring Jack Warner as PC George Dixon. PC Dixon was shot dead by a very young actor named Dirk Bogarde (remember him…?) who played a petty villain on PC Dixon’s beat in bomb-damaged London.
PC George Dixon’s name was inspired by Sir Michael Balcon’s former school George Dixon Grammar in Birmingham.
PC Dixon was reincarnated for the very successful ‘Police Procedural’ TV show of the 60’s and 70’s on BBC1, still played by the original actor from ‘The Blue Lamp’: Jack Warner.
Sir Michael Balcon’s daughter Jill Balcon established links with her father’s old school in Birmingham some years ago. Jill was part of an acting dynasty and married into the Day-Lewis theatrical family which includes Jill Balcon’s double-Oscar winner son Daniel Day-Lewis whose grandfather is Birmingham-born Sir Michael Balcon.

 

Daniel Day-Lewis has also been nominated for a ‘Best Actor’ Oscar in 2013 for his appearance as ‘Lincoln’ in the Steven Spielberg biopic.

 

There is another Birmingham link to Abraham Lincoln. One of Lincoln’s greatest friends and influences was Birmingham MP and anti-slavery campaigner John Bright.

 

Bright encouraged Lincoln to adopt the abolition of slavery as a central aim of his war against the Confederacy and for many years a bust of John Bright MP stood in The White House.

 

Birmingham therefore is linked via Sir Michael Balcon and his Ealing Studios films to Hollywood and the Oscars won by his grandson Daniel Day-Lewis.

 

Birmingham also has several other links to the early British film industry. The first ODEON ‘picture house’ was built in Birmingham by Oscar Deutsch.

 

The acronym ODEON was coined by Oscar Deutsch and stood for: ‘Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation’ and the first ‘ODEON’ was in Birmingham. The word ODEON has become a by-word for a cinema in the British film industry.

 

Birmingham also has the oldest continuously operating cinema in Britain in ‘The Electric Cinema’ in Station Street near the ‘Old Rep’ having first shown news reels and short films since 1909.

 

Current owner Tom Laws has reinvented and reinvigorated ‘The Electric Cinema’ as a Art Deco cinema with a bar, double armchair-style seats which movie-goers can enjoy, creating an enjoyable personal cinema experience, totally different to the multiplex.

 

The fact that Celluloid was invented in the city too makes Birmingham a very important place in the history of the British film industry.

 

46. WEBSTER & HORSFALL

Birmingham rope and wire-making  company Webster and Horsfall based in Small Heath have two claims to fame. Firstly they provided most of the ropes for the British Naval Fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and for Admiral Lord Nelson’s Flag Ship HMS Victory. Another surprising Birmingham link as the British city furthest from the sea is that around 120 of the sailors on HMS Victory hailed from land-locked Birmingham! In 1865 Webster and Horsfall made the very first Trans-Atlantic Telecommunications cable which Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s great steam ship the SS Great Eastern laid at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Webster and Horsfall is one of the few companies in the country with its own dedicated church onsite….St Cyprians of Small Heath

 

47 JOHN BRIGHT MP & PRESIDENT LINCOLN

John Bright MP who played a pivotal role in the 1867 Reform Act which helped enfranchise the ordinary working man was a friend of the great US President Abraham Lincoln. When, early in The American Civil War (1860 – 1865) Lincoln was wavering as to whether he wanted to retain the Abolition of Slavery as one of his key war aims. Bright wrote to Lincoln to bolster his resolve and plead that he continue his abolitionism. Lincoln kept this letter and when he was shot by John Wilkes Booth at The Washington Theatre in 1865 the letter was found in one of the pockets of his frock coat. Many years later First Lady Hillary Clinton found a politician’s bust in a dusty White House storeroom. After some research it was discovered that the bust was of Birmingham MP John Bright and the bust was placed on display in The Oval Office of the Clinton Presidency.

 

48. THOMAS ATTWOOD MP

The Birmingham MP Thomas Attwood, whose reclining statue can be found in Birmingham’s Chamberlain Square was one of the MP’s who played a great role in the enfranchisement of the ordinary working man with the 1832 Reform Act which abolished ‘Rotten Boroughs’. Attwood held a huge political rally at Newhall Hill in 1830 of his Birmingham Political Union which was one of the precursors to the Trade Union Movement and was instrumental in the formation of the unions. The establishment felt under threat by events like the huge Birmingham Rally at Newhall Hill and for a time it was felt that revolution maybe in the air with events in Birmingham.

 

49. THE ELAN VALLEY PROJECT

Joseph Chamberlain, the Birmingham Lord Mayor and Birmingham MP and former Colonial Secretary was the man who made Birmingham into the ‘workshop of the world’ and ‘the city of a thousand trades’ was instrumental in providing clean water for Birmingham artisans and workers through his plan to pipe clean water over 70 miles from North Wales to Bartley Green Reservoir in South Birmingham. This was known as The Elan Valley Project and eradicated water-borne illnesses in the city of Birmingham and continued the city’s exponential industrial growth under Chamberlain

 

 

50. OLD JOE

Joseph Chamberlain was also instrumental in the establishment of The University of Birmingham which was the first of the ‘Redbrick’ Universities established in the great Victorian cities. Birmingham University was formed from Mason College and Chancellor’s Court is a tremendous example of Edwardian architecture. Old Joe, the Clock Tower or Campanile is the tallest free-standing clock tower in the world and is named after Birmingham Lord Mayor and MP and founder of Birmingham University Joseph Chamberlain. Another Birmingham hero JRR Tolkien was growing up in Edwardian Birmingham at this time when the Birmingham University clock tower was being constructed and some think that ‘The Eye of Sauron’ from the second part of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy: ‘The Two Towers’ was inspired by the building of ‘Old Joe’.

 

 

 

Keith Bracey

Brummie Writer and Historian

February 2017

Ten more Birmingham Poems

Birmingham Miscellany – 10 More Birmingham Poems

 

 

EDGBASTON – THE HOME OF TENNIS

 

 

Edgbaston is the place

 

Where they serve up many an Ace

 

Invented by Major Harry Gem:

 

A game for lithe athletic men

 

At 8 Ampton Road: ‘Fairlight’

 

You’d see rubber balls in flight

 

Men and women both

 

They’d hit balls with all their might

 

In clothing… Oh so bright!

 

A game played in Lilywhites

 

As played on a manicured lawn

 

In the summer of 1859

 

Young men and women courting

 

Eating, drinking, laughing

 

Eligible bachelors and young maidens

 

Playing on a mown green grass court

 

‘Good shot sir!’… they’d shout

 

With many a lascivious thought

 

The young women they did ‘Glow’

 

As they knocked balls to and fro

 

Over a rudimentary net

 

With strawberries and cream…..you bet!

 

Lawn tennis started to grow

 

Into the game that we now all know

 

Fred Perry, Bunny Austin,

 

Ann Jones, Virginia Wade

 

Andy Murray and Sue Barker

 

Grand Slam Champions were made

 

So next time you’re in Birmingham

 

Recall Edgbaston’s Major Gem

 

And the Great Game that he gave us:

 

‘Game, Set and Match: Amen!’

 

 

 

Apologies to South African Folk Singer Whistling Roger Whitaker and his 1970’s Christmas hit: Durham Town: This is my #BrumPoem about my home town Bearwood

 

BEARWOOD TOWN

I aye gunner leave ‘ole Bearwood Town…..

I aye gunner leave ‘ole Bearwood Town…..

I aye gunner leave ‘ole Bearwood Town…..

COZ  it aye tha sorta place ter gemme darn…..

Councillors Piper, Eling n Jaron

Do soo much fer are Bearwood Mon

Loike Billy Spake

Does fer thee ‘ole Black Countray

Smerrick is Richard Marshall’s patch…..

This local Councillor does Sooo Mutch…..

Fer Bearwood n Smerrick…..

Smethwick in a Stew n Lightwoods Park……and House…..

Juss two of ‘is projects……Ooh worra lark……!!!

I, and others from ‘is Bearwood Crew…..

Did Volunteer…..

Fer Smethwick in a Stew…..

As a fantastic reward fer uz all…..

Who Volunteer fer are Bearwood…..

‘N’……What’s more…..We did Volunteer…..

Fer tha Beer on tha Black Countray Buzz…..

Juss a few yers agoo the Sandon Road “SIX”

Did trundle too n fro…..

With thee ‘Aglee Rowd crowd

From the 6 Terminus on Sandon Rowd…..Tha Buzz

Past Saint Chad’s….where I was was barn

Way back in ’58…..

Lookin’ All ferlarn…..

As “A Babe in Arms”…..

I wuz taerken,’Ome…..

Ter live in a Flat…..

Above 67…..Three Shires Oak Road…..

The CHOP SUEY BAR…..

Chinese Food…..MADE IN ‘EAVEN…..!!!!

ME Mom n Dad Dot n Lez…..

Did scraerpe tergether enough CASH

Ter raise a Deposit fer BRUM MUNICIPAL BANK

At the top of Willow Ave…..

It wuz their prank…..

Ter buoy an ‘Owse…..

In Willow Ave…..

The first thee ‘ad with an indoor LAV…..

ME BRACEY FAMILY…..

Did scrimp n save…..

Me Mom n Dad did werk sooo ‘Ard…..

Me Mom Dot at the Midland Red…..

In Rutland Road doin’ overtime on a’ addin’ machine…..

Werkin’ till she fell in ter ‘er bed…..

Ter buoy this ‘Owse…..

THEY WERE SOOO BRAVE THA BRACEYS…..!!!!!

ME MOM N DAD THA BRACEYS DOT N LEZ….!!!!!

 

THE STORY OF ADAM AND EVE

 

 

GOD made Adam from a ‘Handful of Dirt’,

 

GAVE him Animals to name……not to Hurt,

 

PLACED him in a Garden that was PARADISE,

 

ADAM said EDEN was very NICE,

 

 

THE problem was……he was SOOOO Alone,

 

SO GOD made EVE from HIS rib bone,

 

THE couple Loved GOD and did obey,

 

THEY listened hard when HE had HIS say,

 

 

THE food in EDEN is good to eat,

 

EVERYTHING is ripe, fresh and sweet,

 

THE fruit from THAT tree shows GOOD and BAD

 

IF you eat THAT fruit, IT will make me MAD,

 
EVE went walking in THE GARDEN one day,

 

WHEN SATAN, The Serpent came and had HIS say,

 

THE fruit from THAT tree will make YOU wise,

 

TRY IT and share some, he did advise,

 

 

EVE and ADAM both ate the FRUIT,

 

THEN realised they were in their BIRTHDAY SUIT,

WHEN GOD called they were SOOOO ashamed,

 

EVE and The Serpent were BOTH blamed,

 

 

GOD was SAD and gave HIS command,

 

From this PARADISE you BOTH are banned.

 

THISTLES and WEEDS will grow from the EARTH,

 

EVE you will suffer, when you give BIRTH.

 

 

SNAKES and HUMANS will always FIGHT,

 

FEET will STAMP and FANGS will BITE,

 

ADAM and EVE were banished to their FATE,

 

GOD placed ANGELS to guard EDEN’S GATE,

 

 

NOT allowed to forget what they had DONE,

 

THE COUPLE worked HARD and HAD two SONS,

 

A FARMER called CAIN and HIS BROTHER ABEL,

 

BUT the LIVES of these TWO MEN is another SAD FABLE.

 

 

 

 

 

BEAUTY IS…….?

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Does it diminish as the eye gets older?

Is it a catwalk model, size ten or sixteen?

Or a holiday-camp teenager crowned Pageant Queen?

 

A thoroughbred horse

Or a Kennel Club hound?

Beauty like our Faith

Is indeed all around

 

A faceted diamond

Or a late vintage wine

The food on a table

Set ready to dine

 

A clear coastal view

Or the prettiest flower

The image of beauty

Can change by the hour

 

A newborn baby

Or a bright blushing bride

Looked at by a husband

With love and such pride

 

A beauty spot here

Or a fine freckle there

The glint of an eye

Or the colour of hair

 

With clear skin or wrinkles

As a face gets older

Beauty indeed

Is in the eye of the beholder

 

 

Balti Belt n Braceys

 

Ladypool Road or Stoney Lane

 

No two Curries are the same

 

Sizzling Tandoori, Tikka too

 

Balti ‘Buckets’ or Vindaloo

 

Kashmiri Spices, Herbs and Veg

 

Chapatis, Roti or Naan Bread

 

Adil, Imran’s, where will you go…..?

 

It’s the ‘Taste of Birmingham’ you know

 

The Colourful Shops in vibrant Streets

 

Window displays of cut-up Sweets

 

Silky Saris, Shalwaar Kameez

 

Bags and Jewellery that will please

 

Wedding venues for Love’s Celebration

 

Attended by Guests from every Nation

 

For Flavours tasted and beautiful odours smelt

 

I’ve often visited Birmingham’s Balti Belt……..

 

 

THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT

 

For ‘Grand Designs’ or ‘The Motor Show’

 

Where in Birmingham does one go?

 

The NIA or NEC?

 

Look around: So much to see!

 

The Hippodrome for Pantomime

 

The Alex for Musicals with Song and Rhyme

 

Orchestral Music at Symphony Hall

 

Or a Play at The Rep, which is just next door!

 

For Concerts performed after dark

 

Visit St Andrew’s or Villa Park

 

Cultural Events at Aston’s ‘Drum’

 

Or Birmingham Royal Ballet for Dance and Fun

 

Art Exhibitions at Birmingham Museum

 

Join Long Queues to go and see ‘em

 

The Magnificent Organ in Hansom’s Town Hall

 

Played for the ‘Three Choirs Festival’

 

Venues to View, Places to Stay

 

Birmingham’s THE City to visit TODAY!

 

 

 

 

BRUMMAGEM’S SONG

If you’ve never been to Birmingham then you ought ta……….

It’s a grand city made up of many a quarter………

There is jewellery to be sold, diamonds, platinum and gold

Boulton’s silver to assay, precious gems from far away.

Guns were made nearby, helping soldiers fight and die

In the English Civil War we made musket, cannon and ball

A more powerful Lewis gun helped the British beat the Hun.

Mr Webley made a revolver fired by many a pitiful soldier

On a lighter note in The Theatre Quarter

The stage is set for talented daughters

The Rep, the Alex and Hippodrome…..

Encourage performers to make Birmingham their own

Chaplin, Burton and Olivier

Travelled here to perform their plays

Musicals, ballets and pantomime

Ensure cultural visitors have a good time

The NEC and NIA have changed their names along the way

The Good Food Show, Crufts and fashion galore

Ensure our visitors come back for more

In the Symphony Hall there was often a battle

Between the CBSO and Sir Simon Rattle

The Chinese Quarter is colourful and bright

A fantastic place to go out at night

Stir-fried noodles, a tantalising odour

A grand Dragon Parade from Wing Yip’s Pagoda.

The Balti Belt, full of saris and spices

Tasty Asian food cooked with different rices

An area to visit to sample a curry,

At Adil’s or Imran’s there’s no need to hurry

Bring your own beer, share various starters

Poppadoms, Pakoras, Aloo with tomatoes

A ‘curry in a bucket’ naan size of a table

Mild, medium or hot, eat it all, if you’re able.

Our City has Cadbury, Jaguar Land Rover too,

Speedway, rugby, and cricket for you

A passion for sport, you can hear the roar

For a goal scored by Blues or Villa football.

Indoor and outdoor, The Bull Ring Markets

Sell everything from cheese to carpets

The Germans come at Christmas time

Bringing Bratwurst, Schnitzel and Gluhwein

Birmingham has ‘More Canals than Venice’

We also invented the game of lawn tennis.

The Botanical Gardens and Cannon Hill Park

Have flowers and lawns, hosting shows: ‘What a lark!’

An airport, coach and New Street Station

Make us the “Centre of our Nation”

To travel by car to any function

You may have to negotiate Spaghetti Junction!!!!!

The ‘Stroll from St Philip’s to St Paul’s’

Where Boulton and Watt occupied the pew stalls

Pugin’s St Chad’s, the Roman Catholic Cathedral

Anglican St Martin’s, on the steps to the bronze Bull

The Kennedy Memorial near Digbeth’s Custard Factory,

Healed the wounds of the Irish after the Birmingham atrocity

The Rotunda stood proud, tall and round

Blown to pieces with ‘The Tavern in the Town.’

The City recovered, no flags at half mast

Brummies look FORWARD, don’t dwell on the past

Our mixture of cultures live well together

Our heritage, our history will go on forever.

 

 

 

 

BIRMINGHAM: THE UNIVERSITY OF LIFE

 

 

Southside Johnnies and Chinatown Jinks

 

Down ‘Olloway ‘Ed

 

To Wing Yip’s Pagoda

 

Leading the Way

 

To Chinatown’s lovely odour

 

A tasty meal cooked in a Wok

 

At Chung Ying Garden

 

We’re ‘Ready to Rock’!

 

Ming Moon Buffet

 

All you can eat

 

As you stroll down the Sidewalk

 

To Brummagem’s Beat!

 

The Fox, The Hip

 

The Back to Backs

 

All open their Doors to

 

Johnnies in Slacks

 

Southside’s Silver Rhino

 

Surveys…… all she can see

 

From the slate grey roofs above

 

The many Theatre-goers with Glee!

 

David Bintley’s Royal Ballet

 

Formerly Sadler’s Wells

 

Puts on ‘The Nutcracker’

 

For many well-heeled ‘Swells’

 

Every Christmas……..

 

David’s ‘Glittering Show’

 

Adorns Chinatown

 

With lots of fake Snow!

 

The young Bucks from Elmhurst School for Dance

 

Apprentice lithe ‘Dancers’ preen and prance……..

 

The Hip’s huge Stage

 

The Largest in the Land

 

Welcomes the UK’s biggest Pantomime

 

And Plays, Musicals and Bands

 

That Adorn Chinatown

 

On ‘Golden Pond’

 

Stir-Fried Noodles

 

And Chicken Feet

 

Fed to me by Miss Chan

 

What a Fantastic Feat!

 

To attract the Chinese

 

To assemble MG’s

 

At Longbridge

 

Premier Wen Jiao Bao

 

He came to Brum

 

In Twenty Eleven to visit the Chinamen

 

After MG Rover went ‘Belly-up’

 

In Twenty Oh Six…….

 

Mike Whitby and Dutton

 

This ‘Marvellous Man’

 

‘Mister #Birmingham Development’

 

SUCH a sad loss…….

 

As Clive Dutton reported to Mike Whitby: ‘The Boss’

 

They Launched Brum’s ‘Big City Plan’…..

 

In Shanghai…..near ‘The Bund’

 

Hoping to attract Chinese Yuan

 

To invest in England

 

To build MG’s in our land……once again!

 

To save the jobs of many a Brummie man

 

In October Twenty Fifteen……

 

Another Chinese Premier came……

 

Li Xing Ping was his name…….

 

This Time Georgie Osborne took ‘im oooooop North……

 

No visit to Longbridge……

 

This Time for ‘The Man’……

 

For Brum…..that wasn’t quite in ‘The Big City Plan’……..

 

I recall in Twenty Ten on Adrian Goldberg’s Radio WM Show…….

 

Talking with Paul Kehoe of BHX ‘Fame’ about……..

 

Birmingham’s ‘Twin City’ of Guangzhou……..

 

About ‘Marketing Birmingham’ to the Chinese……

 

Using ‘Dear Old Bill Shakespeare’ whom the Chinese love……

 

As they fly high into Brummagem

 

High ‘Up Above’…….

 

Using ‘Whitby’s new runway’…….

 

To come to the region……

 

The Chinese Love William Shakespeare…….

 

His Chinese fans are sooooo ‘Legion’……..

 

This @BrummieBard……..

 

“The Greatest West Midlander”………

 

Has the ‘Power to Attract’…….

 

More Investment to ‘Brummagem’!

 

Paul Kehoe poo-pooed mine and Ducker’s idea……

 

But in Twenty Fourteen

 

It became CLEAR…….

 

A ‘No-Brainer’ for ‘BILL’ to Market Birmingham to the Chinese…….

 

More Money for Brum!!!!!!

 

DONE IT!…….With Ease…….

 

NI HAO from this Brummie…….

 

XIE…..XIE…..on our Lips

 

Welcomes Chinese to our supermarkets……..Wonderful WING YIPS!

 

This ‘Man of Fujian’

 

Came to Brum in The Fifties……

 

Made it His Home……..

 

Brum’s Chinese sooooo ‘Thrifty’……..

 

So it is ‘ZAIJIAN’ from me……..The New @BrummieBard…..

 

HEY……!!!!!!!…. Paul Kehoe…..IT wasn’t SOOOO hard…….

 

To Market ‘Dear Birmingham’……..

 

To The Chinese………

 

Using ‘Bill Shakespeare’……..

 

WHAT A MAN from these Shires…..!!!!!!!

 

The World’s GREATEST Playwright……..

 

A “MAN FOR ALL SEASONS”………

 

OUR “BIGGEST ATTRACTION”……

 

FOR SOOOOO MANY REASONS…..

 

As “Bill’s” Plays are about…….

 

Our Common Humanity……..

 

MACBETH’s ‘Vain Death’…….

 

And LEAR’s ‘Huge Vanity’……..

 

THE PLAYERS Do ‘Strut the World’s Stage’…….

 

In Stratford Town……….

 

Just Twenty – Five Miles……..

 

From CHINATOWN……….!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

GOLDEN RINGS FROM THE JEWELLERY QUARTER

 

The Birmingham Jewellery Quarter

 

Is present in our Home

 

Enclosed in the Engagement Ring

 

I am pleased to call my own.

 

Twelve Diamonds round a Ruby,

 

Lovingly set in Gold

 

Handmade by Excellent Craftsmen

 

To wear till I grow old

 

Hannah Hill from Dodd & Co

 

Watched our Love flourish and grow

 

This Beautiful Ring she designed for us

 

For a Proposal made with minimal fuss,

 

Two Circles of Gold followed soon after

 

Made by her brilliant Jewellery Crafter

 

After 25 years of Married Life

 

These Rings bind us together as Man and Wife

Brummagem Song – 10 Birmingham Poems

BRUMMAGEM’S SONG

If you’ve never been to Birmingham then you ought ta……….

It’s a grand city made up of many a quarter………

There is jewellery to be sold, diamonds, platinum and gold

Boulton’s silver to assay, precious gems from far away.

Guns were made nearby, helping soldiers fight and die

In the English Civil War we made musket, cannon and ball

A more powerful Lewis gun helped the British beat the Hun.

Mr Webley made a revolver fired by many a pitiful soldier

On a lighter note in The Theatre Quarter

The stage is set for talented daughters

The Rep, the Alex and Hippodrome…..

Encourage performers to make Birmingham their own

Chaplin, Burton and Olivier

Travelled here to perform their plays

Musicals, ballets and pantomime

Ensure cultural visitors have a good time

The NEC and NIA have changed their names along the way

The Good Food Show, Crufts and fashion galore

Ensure our visitors come back for more

In the Symphony Hall there was often a battle

Between the CBSO and Sir Simon Rattle

The Chinese Quarter is colourful and bright

A fantastic place to go out at night

Stir-fried noodles, a tantalising odour

A grand Dragon Parade from Wing Yip’s Pagoda.

The Balti Belt, full of saris and spices

Tasty Asian food cooked with different rices

An area to visit to sample a curry,

At Adil’s or Imran’s there’s no need to hurry

Bring your own beer, share various starters

Poppadoms, Pakoras, Aloo with tomatoes

A ‘curry in a bucket’ naan size of a table

Mild, medium or hot, eat it all, if you’re able.

Our City has Cadbury, Jaguar Land Rover too,

Speedway, rugby, and cricket for you

A passion for sport, you can hear the roar

For a goal scored by Blues or Villa football.

Indoor and outdoor, The Bull Ring Markets

Sell everything from cheese to carpets

The Germans come at Christmas time

Bringing Bratwurst, Schnitzel and Gluhwein

Birmingham has ‘More Canals than Venice’

We also invented the game of lawn tennis.

The Botanical Gardens and Cannon Hill Park

Have flowers and lawns, hosting shows: ‘What a lark!’

An airport, coach and New Street Station

Make us the “Centre of our Nation”

To travel by car to any function

You may have to negotiate Spaghetti Junction!!!!!

The ‘Stroll from St Philip’s to St Paul’s’

Where Boulton and Watt occupied the pew stalls

Pugin’s St Chad’s, the Roman Catholic Cathedral

Anglican St Martin’s, on the steps to the bronze Bull

The Kennedy Memorial near Digbeth’s Custard Factory,

Healed the wounds of the Irish after the Birmingham atrocity

The Rotunda stood proud, tall and round

Blown to pieces with ‘The Tavern in the Town.’

The City recovered, no flags at half mast

Brummies look FORWARD, don’t dwell on the past

Our mixture of cultures live well together

Our heritage, our history will go on forever.

 

 

 

GOLDEN RINGS FROM THE JEWELLERY QUARTER

 

The Birmingham Jewellery Quarter

 

Is present in our Home

 

Enclosed in the Engagement Ring

 

I am pleased to call my own.

 

Twelve Diamonds round a Ruby,

 

Lovingly set in Gold

 

Handmade by Excellent Craftsmen

 

To wear till I grow old

 

Hannah Hill from Dodd & Co

 

Watched our Love flourish and grow

 

This Beautiful Ring she designed for us

 

For a Proposal made with minimal fuss,

 

Two Circles of Gold followed soon after

 

Made by her brilliant Jewellery Crafter

 

After 25 years of Married Life

 

These Rings bind us together as Man and Wife

 

 

 

THE BATTLE OF BIRMINGHAM

 

Brum is Burning, Brum is Burning

 

Fire…..Fire……Fire…..Fire

 

Charles Prince Rupert

 

Was marauding

 

Throughout the Town

 

Throughout the Town

 

Brum was Roundhead

 

Not for Royalists….

 

Ride them down…..

 

Ride them down…..

 

Rupert killed them

 

Torched their houses

 

For supporting

 

Parliament…..

 

NOT the Crown

 

Many murdered…..

 

Many murdered…..

 

By Rupert’s Cavalry

 

Cut them down

 

Yet at Shireland

 

Was a Skirmish

 

Where Earl Denbigh

 

Met his end

 

Shot him down

 

Shot him down

 

No Justice

 

No Justice

 

For Brummagem

 

For Brummagem!

 

Brum is Burning

 

Brum is Burning

 

Fire….Fire…..Fire…Fire

 

Battle’s over

 

Battle’s over

 

Poor Birmingham

 

Birmingham

 

 

Southside Johnnies and Chinatown Jinks

 

Down ‘Olloway ‘Ed

 

To Wing Yip’s Pagoda

 

Leading the Way

 

To Chinatown’s lovely odour

 

A tasty meal cooked in a Wok

 

At Chung Ying Garden

 

We’re ‘Ready to Rock’!

 

Ming Moon Buffet

 

All you can eat

 

As you stroll down the Sidewalk

 

To Brummagem’s Beat!

 

The Fox, The Hip

 

The Back to Backs

 

All open their Doors to

 

Johnnies in Slacks

 

Southside’s Silver Rhino

 

Surveys…… all she can see

 

From the slate grey roofs above

 

The many Theatre-goers with Glee!

 

David Bintley’s Royal Ballet

 

Formerly Sadler’s Wells

 

Puts on ‘The Nutcracker’

 

For many well-heeled ‘Swells’

 

Every Christmas……..

 

David’s ‘Glittering Show’

 

Adorns Chinatown

 

With lots of fake Snow!

 

The young Bucks from Elmhurst School for Dance

 

Apprentice lithe ‘Dancers’ preen and prance……..

 

The Hip’s huge Stage

 

The Largest in the Land

 

Welcomes the UK’s biggest Pantomime

 

And Plays, Musicals and Bands

 

That Adorn Chinatown

 

On ‘Golden Pond’

 

Stir-Fried Noodles

 

And Chicken Feet

 

Fed to me by Miss Chan

 

What a Fantastic Feat!

 

To attract the Chinese

 

To assemble MG’s

 

At Longbridge

 

Premier Wen Jiao Bao

 

He came to Brum

 

In Twenty Eleven to visit the Chinamen

 

After MG Rover went ‘Belly-up’

 

In Twenty Oh Six…….

 

Mike Whitby and Dutton

 

This ‘Marvellous Man’

 

‘Mister #Birmingham Development’

 

SUCH a sad loss…….

 

As Clive Dutton reported to Mike Whitby: ‘The Boss’

 

They Launched Brum’s ‘Big City Plan’…..

 

In Shanghai…..near ‘The Bund’

 

Hoping to attract Chinese Yuan

 

To invest in England

 

To build MG’s in our land……once again!

 

To save the jobs of many a Brummie man

 

In October Twenty Fifteen……

 

Another Chinese Premier came……

 

Li Xing Ping was his name…….

 

This Time Georgie Osborne took ‘im oooooop North……

 

No visit to Longbridge……

 

This Time for ‘The Man’……

 

For Brum…..that wasn’t quite in ‘The Big City Plan’……..

 

I recall in Twenty Ten on Adrian Goldberg’s Radio WM Show…….

 

Talking with Paul Kehoe of BHX ‘Fame’ about……..

 

Birmingham’s ‘Twin City’ of Guangzhou……..

 

About ‘Marketing Birmingham’ to the Chinese……

 

Using ‘Dear Old Bill Shakespeare’ whom the Chinese love……

 

As they fly high into Brummagem

 

High ‘Up Above’…….

 

Using ‘Whitby’s new runway’…….

 

To come to the region……

 

The Chinese Love William Shakespeare…….

 

His Chinese fans are sooooo ‘Legion’……..

 

This @BrummieBard……..

 

“The Greatest West Midlander”………

 

Has the ‘Power to Attract’…….

 

More Investment to ‘Brummagem’!

 

Paul Kehoe poo-pooed mine and Ducker’s idea……

 

But in Twenty Fourteen

 

It became CLEAR…….

 

A ‘No-Brainer’ for ‘BILL’ to Market Birmingham to the Chinese…….

 

More Money for Brum!!!!!!

 

DONE IT!…….With Ease…….

 

NI HAO from this Brummie…….

 

XIE…..XIE…..on our Lips

 

Welcomes Chinese to our supermarkets……..Wonderful WING YIPS!

 

This ‘Man of Fujian’

 

Came to Brum in The Fifties……

 

Made it His Home……..

 

Brum’s Chinese sooooo ‘Thrifty’……..

 

So it is ‘ZAIJIAN’ from me……..The New @BrummieBard…..

 

HEY……!!!!!!!…. Paul Kehoe…..IT wasn’t SOOOO hard…….

 

To Market ‘Dear Birmingham’……..

 

To The Chinese………

 

Using ‘Bill Shakespeare’……..

 

WHAT A MAN from these Shires…..!!!!!!!

 

The World’s GREATEST Playwright……..

 

A “MAN FOR ALL SEASONS”………

 

OUR “BIGGEST ATTRACTION”……

 

FOR SOOOOO MANY REASONS…..

 

As “Bill’s” Plays are about…….

 

Our Common Humanity……..

 

MACBETH’s ‘Vain Death’…….

 

And LEAR’s ‘Huge Vanity’……..

 

THE PLAYERS Do ‘Strut the World’s Stage’…….

 

In Stratford Town……….

 

Just Twenty – Five Miles……..

 

From CHINATOWN……….!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Balti Belt n Braceys

 

Ladypool Road or Stoney Lane

 

No two Curries are the same

 

Sizzling Tandoori, Tikka too

 

Balti ‘Buckets’ or Vindaloo

 

Kashmiri Spices, Herbs and Veg

 

Chapatis, Roti or Naan Bread

 

Adil, Imran’s, where will you go…..?

 

It’s the ‘Taste of Birmingham’ you know

 

The Colourful Shops in vibrant Streets

 

Window displays of cut-up Sweets

 

Silky Saris, Shalwaar Kameez

 

Bags and Jewellery that will please

 

Wedding venues for Love’s Celebration

 

Attended by Guests from every Nation

 

For Flavours tasted and beautiful odours smelt

 

I’ve often visited Birmingham’s Balti Belt……..

 

 

 

PLAYED IN BIRMINGHAM

 

Blues, Bears, Barons

 

Villains, Wasps and Wolves

 

Harriers, Saddlers, Bullets

 

Baggies, Bees and Bulls

 

 

Four Football grounds to visit

 

Four home team strips to buy

 

Colourful scarves round cold necks

 

Or for Fans to hold up high

 

 

The oval ball pulls in the crowds at Moseley RFC

 

For mucky rucks and scrums so tough

 

Such spectacular tries to see

 

Their followers stand together

 

 

With drinks held in their hand

 

They roar and sing to urge their boys

 

Uniting Rugby in their stand

 

Against violence in the land

 

 

It’s cricket in the summer

 

To Edgbaston Fans will go

 

Watching men in white in a crease with bat

 

A five dayer seems oh……so slow

 

 

The Twenty Twenty is much more fun

 

The Ball flies everywhere

There are wickets, sixes and catches

 

As we cheer on Birmingham Bears

 

 

 

Brummagem’s Bands

 

Birmingham has produced the Biggest Bands

 

With Fabulous Songs and Adoring Fans

 

Famous in Europe and the USA

 

Outstanding Music here to stay

 

Rock from Black Sabbath and Judas Priest

 

Was Heavy and Loud, to say the least

 

The Move had ‘Flowers in the Rain’

 

First Record on Radio One, they claim

 

Dexy’s sang: ‘Come on Eileen’

 

The Dance Floor Anthem for Love’s Young Dream

 

UB40 had a Kitchen with a Rat

 

While Sabbath’s Ozzy bit the Head off a Bat

 

The Dutchie was passed by Musical Youth

 

Duran Duran: ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’

 

Led Zeppelin climbed a ‘Stairway to Heaven’

 

The World’s Greatest Band in ‘77

 

Electric Lights inspired Jeff Lynne

 

Moody Blues dressed in White Satin

 

Would Christmas be the same without Wizzard and Slade?

 

Performing the Music Midlands’ Bands Made!

 

 

 

BIRMINGHAM: THE UNIVERSITY OF LIFE

 

Back in Nineteen Seventy Six

 

When the Hot Sun baked the broiling Bricks

 

And Denis Howell MP for Small Heath

 

Was ‘Minister for Drought’ in the searing heat

 

He urged us all to bathe together

 

And not run round ‘Hell for Leather’

 

I went from Birmingham Grammar School Boy

 

To the University in Edgbaston with Unbridled Joy

 

This Bright but Callow Brummie Lad

 

Became a Birmingham Undergrad

 

Studying B.Com in the Muirhead Tower

 

Where The Paternoster Lifts ran Hour after Hour

 

Perpetual Motion taking ‘Tortured Souls’

 

To jump off this Brutalist Muirhead Coil

 

When Exams in Accounts became too much to Toil

 

Doctor Peter Cain my ancient Tutor

 

Urged this Fresh man to use the first Punch-Card Computer

 

This Student donned a Great Coat and Scarf

 

And would do anything for a ‘Belly Laugh’

 

Like Read the Communist Manifesto

 

At Peter Cain’s educated behest….Oh!

 

Marx and Engels to the Fore

 

As all us Students fought ‘The Class War’!

 

David Lodge’s ‘Nice Work’ if you can gerrit…..?

 

Made University Life seem so decrepit

 

To study Accounts was my Forte

 

Or so I often thought…..Eh….?

 

But when The Doubts began to creep in

 

And my ‘Number Blindness’ started to seep in

 

To my youthful callow consciousness

 

With such dire unfortunate consequences

 

My exam time worry started to show

 

And I was struck such a Mortal Blow

 

When I failed my Exams in Statistics and Maths

 

But Tutor Cain set me on a Different Path

 

To study Law and forget the Math

 

Peter told me I still had a Bright Future

 

No longer for me the Statistical Torture!

 

For this Rugby-Playing Muddied Oaf

 

On the Bournbrook pitches…. I used my Loaf

 

And played for the University First Fifteen

 

As an Eighteen Year Old Flyaway Flanker

 

I made my debut for my Alma Mater

 

Where my Rugby defined me as a Young Man

 

Without any sort of discernible plan

 

The First Fifteen I played in October ‘76

 

Before I even made my debut for The Old Dix!!!!!

 

Julia Honeychurch was my squeeze

 

Back in Strathcona we ‘Shot the Breeze’!

 

Mick’s Café’s Race and Carnival

 

Was what defined me as a pal

 

A ‘Belly-Buster Breakfast’ and a pint of Guinness

 

The aim not to throw up at the Breathless Finish

 

A Two Mile Run from the Student’s Union

 

Down to Heeley Road and a date with Oblivion

 

Where Bacon and Egg were downed with Glee

 

Before running back to ‘The Mermaid in The See’

 

That’s when it all went ‘Pete Tong’ for me

 

As I threw up and my Salad Days

 

Became Carrots and Peas

 

And I was in an Alcoholic Daze

 

While on my knees

 

All good fun to raise ‘Cash for Carnival’

 

I was no longer a ‘Freshman Virgin’ in High Hall….!!!!!

 

 

FOR REBECCA TERESA WOODLOCK

 

To Darling Dear Rebecca

 

A Poem just to say

 

That Santa won’t forget You

 

When He’s on His Merry Way

 

 

A Bright Light will be shining

 

To Light His Way Above

 

He will find you in The Stars

 

Surrounded by God’s Love

 

 

You changed my Life in Many Ways

 

Although our Time was Brief

 

From Autumn into Winter

 

I’ve struggled with my Grief

 

 

Now this Sad Year is Ending

 

A New One soon to Come

 

I know that you are Peaceful

 

My Duty has been Done

 

 

So ‘Merry Christmas’ to You

 

And a Happy New Year too

 

From All of Us at Hallfield

 

Who Are Deeply Missing You……..

 

 

 

6 things you may not know about POWs in England during the First World War

Prisoners of War in Britain during the Great War…….over 100,00 PoWs were held in Britain during the first world war

The Historic England Blog

Britain held nearly 100,000 prisoners of war (POWs) by the Armistice, November 1918.

Almost all were German soldiers captured on the Western Front in the years since Britain declared war on Germany, August 1914.

Prisoners were interned in hundreds of locations across England, ranging from purpose-built camps holding thousands of men, to locations that held just a few individuals. Despite widespread British anti-German sentiment, POWs were generally correctly treated.

Here are six things you may not know about German POWs held in England:

1. Some camps were thought to be too luxurious

Donington Hall prisoner of war camp, Leicestershire. © ICRC.

Under the 1907 Hague Convention, captured servicemen were entitled to treatment in line with their rank and board, lodging and clothing comparable to that of their captors. Officers were not required to work. Donington Hall, an 18^th century stately home set in parkland, was requisitioned to house captured…

View original post 735 more words

Stonehenge

Stonehenge….one of Britain’s greatest historic sites

The Iron Room

Stukeley, William. Stonehenge, a temple restor’d to the British druids, 1740. London: Printed for W. Innys and R. Manby, at the West End of St. Paul’s, 1740. Widener Library, Harvard University.

A centenary to celebrate! Sir Cecil Chubb (1876 – 1934) and his wife Mary donated Stonehenge to the nation on 26 October 1918. The monument is now cared for by English Heritage and their excellent website illustrates the events, exhibitions and activities there are to mark the centenary.

Cecil Chubb was born at Shrewton, a few miles from Stonehenge, and became a barrister, Justice of the Peace, Chairman of Fisherton House, Salisbury (one of the largest private psychiatric hospitals in Europe during the 1920s), a racehorse owner and breeder of shorthorn cattle. He had purchased the monument for £6,600 at auction in 1915, from the Antrobus family, after their last male heir was killed during the First World War.

View original post 736 more words

Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution by Priya Satia

#Birmingham is the ONLY British city with a dedicated ‘Gun Quarter’ where guns were made and tested…..Truly guns have played an important part in the history of Birmingham…..from the ‘Battle of Birmingham’ when Royalist forces under Prince Rupert in the English Civil War laid waste to the small manufacturing town of Birmingham for its support of Parliament and its provision of guns to the Parliamentary forces and the New Model Army…..to the role that Birmingham’s Gun Quarter played in the supply of guns in both world wars with the Birmingham Small Arms Company becoming world famous for the quality of its weapons….My Dad Leslie Charles Bracey worked in the Gun Quarter before the second world war carrying sporting guns to the Birmingham Proof House for testing as my Dad’s family lived and grew up in the Birmingham Gun Quarter living in the back to backs of Little Shadwell Street in the shadow of the Roman Catholic St Chad’s Cathedral

The Iron Room

For Black History Month, this week’s blog post is a review of a recent addition to our holdings:  Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution by Priya Satia published this year by Duckworth Overlook.

At the heart of this studious discourse rests an argument which provides a new appraisal of the forces which drove Britain’s place at the forefront of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The central premise of the tome is that the real cause of economic and imperial expansion was due to an exceedingly lucrative military contracting the production of guns and other weaponry which kept the nation in an almost constant state of production and warfare. This revisionist view of the genesis of the industrial revolution places conflict and Britain’s global expansionist desires very much at the forefront of the country’s change to an industrialised nation.

The…

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