A poignant and beautifully observed collage. Thank you, everyone involved in creating this and of course posting it here. There was a clip of the Queen turning into Causeway Green Road, where I was born, and turning down to Langley before going to Oldbury Town Hall. Every street, house,vehicle, the way the people were dressed - was a delight to see. I was four then and walked that route a thousand times on the way to Titford Road School. Elderly chaps always say it, but it was a wonderful time and a wonderful place.
A wonderful pot-pourri of Black Country dialect. Brings back memories of the Worton family from Cradley that my dad's sister, Edith Perrins married into. Uncle Jack, John Worton, chain maker, forger of anchor shackles, one of 14, his father, Charles, chain maker, his mother probably made nails out the back. Uncle Alf could talk posh, he had a greengrocer's shop in Halesowen. Our first house in the 60's was on the new Penfields Estate in Stourbridge. I was born in Oldswinford, my wife was a Londoner. When the in-laws came to visit it took them ages to find us because they couldn't understand the dialect spoken. It bain't like that now!
Brilliant. Moving. Eloquent. Poignant. Witty. A record of the impact of seismic change in an area that included the Black Patch - a place that over 50 years has seen the greatest haemorrhage of capital, work and life itself of any place in the whole country. The Black Patch was one of the places the Industrial Revolution began. It is one of the places where, almost literally, the revolution ran out of steam. In these confusing 'post-industrial' times we seem to be stumbling in the dark through blighted streets littered with happy funny memories - not of 'better' times, but of hard tough times with meaning, purpose and order.
Having been bred in Bromford road, Oldboy in 1941 I would have liked to have watched this vid, but the bludy irritertin music purra stop to it afta wun Minit
