1960s Black Country Documentary 

You gotta be a Tiptoner lol

It ay arf x

so true how is was should be remembered forever

Well if you stopped genociding indigenous Europeans in their ancestral homeland with non stop displacement migration you wouldn't have to worry so much about it. But now you're down to 3% avg. primary school enrollments in the midlands for indigenous people because your women and weak men keep applauding genocide and voting for more of it over and over so they can brag on facebook when their daughter becomes a heroin addicted town bicycle for the local grooming gang or virtue signal about how much they like foreign food when their daughters end up in a flippin' kebab like the Rotherham grooming scandal that led to 1 MILLION children being raped according to the Home Office there. You guys need to fix your shit. Or allow a right of return so us diaspora can come back and fix it for you.

@@user-sc3ts6lf8r🙏

I've heard many times there's Dutch blood/ancestry here. Not sure if it's true or not.

@@bmc9504 very true Google battle of wensfield

@@bmc9504 blood of all kind!

Dogger land

Anglo-Saxon black country blood ,

That's great Lester! Fab-U-Luss!

Absolutely amazing find

Had mates who'd swim in the canal in Walsall! Lol a lad fell in once, stunk!

@@vincentwilliams8685 I learnt to swim in the cut in Tipton in the 60s.

@@macca1146 good days mate 👍

@theperson nextdoor No I live in Oz now!

Interesting comment. That's so sad. Where did you move too?

@@TenderHooligan the cotswolds.

@@monteceitomoocher dump

@@monteceitomoocher Beautiful place.

Agree. It's turned into a sad and dull place with all the fave shops gone. I used to buy jeans at a discounted price from a shop in Hall St (opp. Tesco) which closed in the early 90s. The toy shop in the arcade has closed too which had been there for over 60 years.

So you think that other regions of the UK or world have just always had gymnasiums?

That's great! All my Mum's family were from Wednesbury! Brill.

Though born in London I was brought up in Wordsley from a very early age and developed a strong Black Country accent. I still visit regularly and have a great love for the place. Stourbridge always thought they were a cut above because originally it was part of Worcestershire and has a Waitrose!

@Iain Clark yeah thats true! North Worcestershire as they so often like to say!

@@iainclark5964🤣

⁠@@APRS🤣

I have a joke to tell you: "a man walked into a bar...."

The birmid too my understanding was just called the birmid my nan and grandma also worked there probably around the same time as your dad I'm also assume that the pub your dad would go to was the birmid social club on great Arthur Street which was owned by the company I use to go there as a very young kid hope this has given you a little bit more information

@@jonpaulbray1450 my dad went to every pub in Smethwick 😂😂 Thanks for your reply

@Biggurs Bigz typical Smethwick bloke then there was alot to choose from back then tho all of my family were from there glad I could help or tho it wasn't much 👍🏻

Birmid = Birmingham and Midland Motor Cylinder. I was born and bred in Smethwick (born 1945).

That's a very moving testimony. Thanks for sharing it. The film had already been digitised when I received it a number of years ago. It was sent to me by an archivist who has since moved on from her job in the West Midlands.

@@user-sc3ts6lf8r Actually not. After I had been making short films for a few months they moved me on to producing a few studio based shows, not directing multi camera because that is complicated and I hadn't been taught yet. One was a kids show. I had the presenter tell the viewers it was a nice day and they should go outside and play instead of watching the next show. Phone in the control room rang and it was Lew Grade. "Come and see me first thing in the morning." When I entered his office he told me to put the mail down and get out as he was waiting to fire a Producer. When we had cleared up that I was the Producer he was waiting to fire rather than the mail boy, he mellowed. He explained that my crime had been to tell the kids in the audience to stop watching before they had watched the Commercials. TV and the world was different then.

I was born on the Lost City, and went into a drop forge at 16 until i retired some 6 years ago, bloody hard work but enjoyable, you earned your pint in those days. You can take the man out of the black country but you will never take the black country out of the man.

​@@macca1146 Real men like you and redchilly and my late father in law have my huge respect. I made films like this but not this one. Not real work at all compared to people like you. Well done.

I get this all the time! 🙄

When my now wife met my dad for the first time - she's from Somerset, he was telling her all about my last girlfriend for some reason, I was really embarrassed until I realised that her day know what he was a sayin! We still loff abart it, two double we bin!

I would recommend go checking out the Black Country Museum if you haven't heard of that! Do the proper Fish & Chips there too!

He’s saying he once stopped in a pub in Hampton loade in Shropshire and the landlord owned a monkey called Billy. I think he said the monkey would jump up on the table and pinch things off peoples plates lol. Anyway, he’s saying this happened to him and as they opened the oven to take the meat out he shoved the monkey in haha. The next sentence is completely indecipherable and I’m a native speaker of the dialect 😂😂 in the last part he says that When the landlord opened the oven to let the monkey out he ran and climbed up a pear tree. When the landlords wife shouted for him to come down he wouldn’t and jokes that “billy was cooling his feet off”. Brilliant stuff.

By the Grace of God, with white knuckles we hang on by our fingertips!

Gwyn Richards provides the sound commentary. The late Dr John Fletcher (1934-96) of the Black Country Society provides the pieces to camera. JMF was originally from Wednesbury.

LOL! I am a Brummie, but my Mum and Grandparents were from West Brom/ Wednesbury. I have rellies in Walsall too and they regard themselves very much as Black Country folk.

Iam from Walsall but mom dad and all our family are black country all working class hAd factory or shop jobs two of us are trained nurses iam proud of them all

Just say you are from Walsall then, nothing wrong with that

@J Polo Yea, that sounds right to me especially as your boundaries follow the underlying 'black' geology quite closely.

@J Polo I think it is a cultural thing rather than anything with fixed geographical boundaries. At the centre of the culture is a slightly self deprecating, but wicked sense of humour! Irony, bordering on sarcasm, also plays a part. Black Country people are always up for a laugh.

Sorry I don't know, Andres.

its harry ok met him a few times great man

A loud "Amen".Macca. Enjoy your retirement mate.

Ow bin ya.

"Ah Bist?" In Gornal lol

I would regard it was being just beyond the Northern edge of the Black Country but the accent is "Black Country" rather than Brummie.

I would personally like to include Smethwick too...

Didn't he just say Walsall was beyond the Coal Seam?

@@MrSweetPhilly listen again please

​@ppppickup I've done some research into exactly where the coalfield is, Dr fletcher the bloke with the beard is referring to the southern section of the south Staffordshire coalfield below the Bentley faults when he's describing where the black country is but its not the most accurate description fortunately today with detailed geological maps you can find out the exact extent. The black country society used to say the black country was anywhere the 10 yard (30ft) coal came to the surface now this is part of the modern towns of Dudley, netherton, Coseley, Tipton, Bilston, Brierley hill, Sedgley, the Gornals, Kingswinford, Darlaston, Wednesbury, Cradley, Cradley heath, lye, Quarry bank, Pensnett, Amblecote, wollescote, moxley, Bradley, West Bromwich, and interestingly the monmore green, rough hills, ettingshall, parkfield areas of south east Wolverhampton. Plus shallow sections of the thick under Himley wordsley, Oldbury, Rowley regis/black heath, tividale, great bridge old hill and Halesowen. Plus much deeper under but not really considered on the south staffs coalfield under Baggeridge, Sandwell Valley, great Barr and Smethwick. There are other towns not on the thick seam but on other seams still on the coalfield below the Bentley faults that would be Willenhall, heathtown, Wednesfield, Bentley, the birchills, Alumwell area of walsall. Its actually really complex no wonder its so hard to define. There are maps on the BGS's website where you can find out if you look hard enough see attached map which covers large part of the black country where the thick comes to the surface is labelled TC, there are many other maps on there dating back to the 19th century also. largeimages.bgs.ac.uk/iip/mapsportal.html?id=1004274

@@user-sc3ts6lf8ryes that's right the motorway is pretty much the border there you may be interested in this its the first ordinance survey map from 1834 of the black country and you can see what the original extent of it was and it matches up very closely with the 10 yard thick seam. nla.gov.au/nla.obj-271389036/view

I can still remember the night-time glow from Round Oak Steelworks. Me fairther’s fust job was there.

I think most people regard Wolverhampton as a place with it's own identity, but having a lot in common with the Black Country. The shared sense of humour and dialect are very important.

You can start a verbal fight in a pub saying that!

@@chascox8806 That's the thing, you see. Most of Wolverhampton isn't in the Black Country. Part are, though. Anyway, Black Country people should be proud, and are. As should Wulfrunians

We may as well be at this point. A long with stourbridge

@@TenderHooligan Yeah, Stourbridge folk can get a bit sniffy about it. I'm from Amblecote and consider myself Black Country as a cultural thing but some of the posher Stourbridge oldies still think they're Worcestershire.

They are actually saying "Brummijum"...Birmingham people are colloquially known as "Brummies".

@@Nuttybott yeah but think about it. Bromwich is already a prominent name in the history of the area. I would guess that "West Bromwich" actually means "West Birmingham" and that Birmingham originally meant Bromwicham

So I've just read the history and I'm totally wrong lol. But there is definitely something going on phonetically

@@shaunflavour6366 Nope. Brum is from a very long Anglo saxon name that I can't be bothered to copy to write here, but means 'the settlement of Beormund' while Bromwich is Bromwic 'Broom Village' .

Back in the day the black country was a collection of smaller villages with loads of colliery and foundrys, but not a connected urban sprawl as it is today. Even back then wolves and walsall and obviously brum, were bigger towns. And so the black "country" was the country side in-between Wolverhampton and Birmingham

@@patjonas0ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yjoKgyMChgk.htmlfeature=shared

I think he's telling a joke, but his brain and mouth aren't connected presumably because of the beer.

Not 100% but he was at a fishing contest, and the cat was going round getting the scraps. He shoved his meat (fish in the oven) his mate left the fish out , the cat got out, grabbed the fish and went up the pear tree, even when his missus, called it, it wouldn't come down. Darlo born n bread but that's a lot of slurring for even me to translate

@@garyborland6680 Just listened to it again with your partial translation in mind and I think he says something about a monkey eating the fish meat? I didn’t hear ‘cat’, though that would make more sense!

@@fuckdefed yeah he says someone's running around like a monkey. Given the time period it could be one of 2 things really. A kid or an animal. I took it as a cat simply because he said they took the meat and ran up the tree and refused to come down. I know is black country peeps are weird. But I don't think I know any that'll take a fish up a tree. A few that have tried fishing from trees tho.

@@garyborland6680 I’m from cradley. He’s talking about a fishing contest at Hampton loade in Shropshire. The landlady had a pet monkey that would nick off peoples plates. So he shoved it in when she opened the oven. When she reopened it the monkey ran up a pear tree to cool his feet off. Brilliant lol

I totally agree. People seem to be able to justify all sorts of totally unacceptable behaviour.

It is cruel and anyone caught doing it needs the book throwing at them but, the dogs don't scream, you can't make a dog fight, they're given the best food available, they're exercised until they hit peak fitness, they're made to feel as if they're unbeatable, the dogs fight in timed rounds, there's a line scratched across the centre of the pit, the dogs are released and they run up to the scratch mark and fight, they're taken back to their corners and wiped down, then released for the next round, if the dogs doesn't run up to the scratch (that's where the saying, 'he doesn't come up to scratch' comes from) the fight is stopped, they don't let a dog that doesn't want to fight be mauled by another dog, some good news, not every pup born in a litter would make a fighting dog, and they only bred of dogs that had proven themselves in the ring, few bull & terrier type dogs have the instinct in them to fight and it won't be long before it's completely bred out, thank god.

Thanks for your informative post. It satisfies me that "dogfighting" was not an uncontrolled exercise in cruelty but was well controlled. The dogs would not now form a type or breed if dog-fighting was not part of life. "Irish Wolfhounds" would not now exist if we Irish didn't hunt Wolves etc. Thanks for your explanation of the term "up to scratch" - also very interesting. Slán agus Beannacht.

@@Martin-tn5lm sla'n☘️

LOL! He's not a personal friend of mine, but he seems committed to the cause! I wonder if he's still around?

@@chascox8806 I'm sure he's a good lad, just seems like he's yelling at me a little bit, ha ha. Cheers for the upload buddy!

Yes it is.

@@jameswyer772 thay all talk like brumies in halesowen

@@jaclynfletcher6198 that doesn’t define where it is on a map unfortunately bab

Yer it tis

@@jaclynfletcher6198 colley gate sez ovawise lol