IN
THE BEGINNING
By Martyn Round
(This article first appeared in the 150th issue of The Blackcountryman,
in March 2005 - editor)
As we reach an important milestone in the form
of the 150th edition of The Blackcountryman, I thought it interesting
to look back some 38 to the earliest days of both Society and
magazine, as seen through the eyes of its contributors. A glance
through the pages of the first four editions stirs both imagination
and memories, none more so than in the ‘Society News’
section of Vol.1. No.1. It is here that John Brimble informs us,
that on the ‘31st December 1966, Dr J. M. Fletcher and Mr
J. Brimble announced in the local press that they intended to
form a Black Country Society in order to promote interest in the
past present and future of this great and interesting region’.
It continues to say that ‘there was an immediate response
from the public and a membership of 50 was quickly achieved.’
One year later, at the time of his writing, the Society boasted
of over 150 members, ‘mostly Black Country born and bred,
but including a number of ‘outsiders’.’ The
Society’s inaugural meeting had been held on Wednesday,
March 1st 1967, at the ‘Noah’s Ark’ public house,
Tipton, with the attendance ‘by far exceeding expectation’.
Once the die had been cast there was no holding back on the many
imaginative ventures that further helped to bond members together.
Today, one can only admire the enthusiasm and sheer hard work
of our predecessors in endeavouring to establish the Society on
a firm footing.
Regular monthly meetings with an average attendance
of sixty were, held in public houses, ‘as the social life
of the Black Country revolved around its local pubs’. In
this congenial atmosphere, ‘members have been able to meet
new and interesting people and many new friendships have been
born’. The November meeting took the form of a ‘Groaty
Puddin’ supper’, held at the Pear Tree Inn, Mincing
Lane, Blackheath. Several sub-committees were also formed during
the first year, each working on differing aspects of Black Country
life. These included a Photographic Section, Drama Section, and
Tape Recording Section; also one to study the history of transport
in the Black Country. There’s also mention of trips to places
of historic and industrial interest, the first being a Saturday
evening trip through the Dudley Canal Tunnel, also an unusual
one made by some twenty-five members who ‘were able to tour
some of the industrial relics of Shropshire in a 1929 ‘bus’.
The announcement in 1967 of the impending closure
of Baggeridge Colliery, meant virtually an end to coal mining
in the Black Country. The Society marked this historic event by
producing its first commemorative bronze medallion. In this issue
are articles about both colliery and medallion. During the year
the Society had published two controversial Christmas cards, which
‘created such interest that within a short time the whole
stock was sold out’; also preliminary work had been carried
out towards the publication of three books, The Tipton Slasher,
Aynuck’s Bible, and book of poems and monologues. It is
interesting that although there are letters of support for the
magazine from the world of politics, industry and the church,
there is little mention of The Blackcountryman’s origins.
One is therefore left wondering as to whose idea it was, and how
it came into fruition? There are stirring words from its editor,
Harold Parsons, and I have no doubt he played the major role in
its concept.
I first met Harold Parsons in the late summer
or autumn of 1967 and can clearly remember the discussions between
him and my employer, W. Howard Taylor, concerning the printing
a new Black Country magazine (a meeting documented in greater
detail in the 100th edition). Even in those days, a passing glance
would have told anyone that Harold was not in the best of physical
health and never would be. However, knowledgeable and strong-willed,
and knew exactly what he wanted regarding The Blackcountryman.
He appeared to have full control, not only for content but also
production and would not tolerate interference from anyone. This
single-minded approach benefited us, the printers; in that we
dealt with one person for everything. In producing the magazine
this way, Harold fully demonstrated also a wealth of experience
both as an editor and journalist. He could however, be stubborn
and very difficult to please, in the years that followed there
were disputes between us over the simplest of things. Spurning
advice at times, he insisted on having his own way in everything,
including the type selection and layout of each and every page;
and woe betides us if the proofs were late. He more than anyone
knew the quality of publication needed to stand at the forefront
of the Society, it would be its flagship for everything else to
follow. The Committee could not have chosen a finer person than
Harold Parsons for its Editor; the foundations he laid down in
1968 still remain today. The Blackcountryman became his masterpiece;
through it he served the Society well.
Volume 1 therefore comprised of four quarterly
issues, each consisting of seventy-two pages plus the cover and
were printed letterpress in black only. A two-colour cover didn’t
appear until Vol. 2. The inaugural edition must have been printed
either in the December of 1967, or possibly early January, 1968.
Even today, just by flicking through its pages one can tell that
a great deal of thought had been given regarding its presentation.
Harold’s stamp of originality is written all over it. A
clever mixture of single and double columns for pages of text
matter, along with the title headings presented in an unconventional
but eye-catching way, highlights the imaginative layout. Poetry,
photographs and advertising are interspersed with the articles
to give life and sparkle to the magazine. The amount of material
available must have been limited and I would imagine many of the
twenty or so contributions came from the committee and friends.
In this inaugural issue, Dr Fletcher writes of ‘Wednesbury
Spots and Boxes’ and ‘What is the Black Country’,
and Harry Harrison of ‘Coseley Crusaders Cricket Association’.
There’s a well-researched piece on the history of Sandwell
Priory, also John Brimble gives us a descriptive round-up of patrons
at ‘The White Swan’, Tipton. Harold Parsons also takes
up the pen to give us an informative interview with Black Country
comedian, Billy Russell. A series of articles on ‘Coats
of Arms in the Black Country’ and ‘Black Country Mysteries
and Oddities’, first saw light of day. Book reviews, jokes
and two quizzes completed this first issue. The annual subscription
for the magazine was 14/- post free or 3/6 if bought singly. As
today, it was free with a full membership of the Society; the
individual membership being £1, family membership 30/-,
and ‘bona-fide students, apprentices and old age pensioners’,
15/-.
Interestingly enough, my copy of issue 1 is marked
‘reprinted in February 1968’, therefore I have to
look to issue No. 2 for the reason. In ‘Society News’
we are informed that ‘2,000 copies were quickly sold and
a reprint became necessary to cope with demand’. The optimism
expressed in the first magazine hadn’t diminished either.
Harold’s editorial urges the cavalry on with, ‘Success
has greater impact than any amount of editorial spiel, and anyway
victory is yours…’. He later says, ‘Meanwhile
- no complacency. Rather, consolidation and a steady build
up to a really large circulation.’
January of that year had bought two important
events; Billy Russell being made Honorary Vice-President on the
7th, and on the 17th the Annual Dinner to mark the first Anniversary
of the Society. John Brimble in his ‘Society News’
tells that ‘Over 60 people turned up to enjoy an excellent
meal and the entertainment afterwards provided by folk singer
Jon Raven’. In February, a small party from the Society
had made a final visit to Baggeridge Colliery, and ‘although
covered with coal dust on their return to the surface, members
thoroughly enjoyed their journey into the bowels of the earth’.
Included in this issue are articles by The Rt. Hon. Lord George
Wigg, P.C., former M.P. for Dudley, Frank Pepworth and John Wylde.
James H. Ruston writes of ‘William Shenstone’ and
W. Homer of ‘Francis Brett Young’. Jim William Jones
contributes a poem and Harold Parsons a short story entitled ‘The
Cog’, plus a delightful interview with Dorothy Round. The
first romance within the ranks of the Black Country Society is
also recorded, with the engagement of Committee members, Miss
Linda Payton, of Ocker Hill, Tipton, to Mr A. W. Hughes, of Bescot
Road, Walsall. The first ‘Correspondence’ page appears
in this issue and contains some interesting and lively material.
Mrs G. R. Harris, mentions memories from her past and complains
about the recent change in postal addresses. H. D. Poole writes
of ‘Baggeridge Shafts’, and Jon Raven takes issue
with a reviewer of his work from the previous magazine. A letter
from R. A. Guest contains the statement that ‘Walsall was
omitted from the Domesday Book because it was of no importance’.
The overall appearance of the magazine gives an impression that
for this second edition, Harold Parsons had a far greater selection
of material to choose from.
This is borne out in his Editorial for the July
issue No.3, where he says, ‘we are receiving a gratifying
amount of material (articles, stories, poems) eminently suitable
for publication in the magazine, and would be horrified if it
were for one moment assumed that we wished the flow to lessen’.
He goes on to say that what is ideally required are some twenty-five
to thirty items per issue, giving a variety of content ‘to
sustain the interest of all sections and classes of Black Country
society’. ‘Society News’ informs us sales of
April issue No. 2 were, as with the first issue, ‘very brisk’.
It also goes on to report a steady increase in membership and
the ‘very welcome problem of finding larger rooms in which
to hold meetings’.
There is a report on the first Annual General
Meeting held at the Black Cock Inn, Tipton, on the 20th March.
The President, Dr J. M. Fletcher, stated in his address that ‘the
Black Country Society had carved for itself a special place in
Black Country life. “It is pleasing.” he said, “that
students studying the social industrial and economic life in the
area, also its folk-lore and dialect, are looking to the Society
as an authority from which to receive information”. He further
emphasised that whist the Society had a deep interest in the past,
it was concerned also with future development. Dr Fletcher was
re-elected as President, John Brimble as Secretary, and Michael
Watson as Treasurer. A further twelve people made up the Committee
with an additional five being co-opted at a later date.
Two articles looking at the opposite ends of
the seventy-plus-year life of Baggeridge Colliery feature. The
first tells of its demise, with four Society members being there
at 5.30 a.m. on 2nd March, ‘to receive and photograph the
men of the last shift’; the second by Jos. W. Stainton,
recalls its earlier days. We are doubly fortunate in having two
excellent Harold Parsons interviews, one with the actor Chris
Gittins, (Walter Gabriel of ‘The Archers’), the other
with Jesse Pennington, whose name will always be mentioned in
the same breath as West Bromwich Albion. Indeed, the club logo
appears on the magazine cover in celebration of Albion winning
the F.A. Cup in April. Still on the sporting scene, Tom Langley
talks about the days of bareknuckle boxing with, ‘Tom Hickman
- Champion’. Frank Pepworth looks to the future in
his ‘Motorways across the Black Country’, and on a
similar vein there’s reference in ‘Society News’
to the ever increasing donations of items and photographs that
‘will eventually be exhibited in a Black Country Museum’.
However, what really caught my eye was a humorous short sketch
entitled ‘But of Course!’, - about the Black
Country being seen as a Mecca for tourists! The ‘Correspondence’
section shows tremendous growth with a total of ten letters being
published; some arguing or answering points arising from previous
articles and letters, others requesting information. Edmund H.
Bissell, as a postscript to his article ‘Craftsmen at Work’,
wished to hear of craftsmen ‘whose work is likely to suffer
serious modification or disappearance because of advance in industrial
technology’.
An interesting advertisement for Black Country
Stories appears on the front cover of this issue, promising ‘over
500 laughs in one volume’ and announcing its sale in September,
price 5/-. Based on stories originally published by T. H. Gough
between 1934-42, it was ‘revised, pruned and streamlined’
by Harold Parsons, ‘with many new ones added’. (One
of Harold’s sidelines was to write ‘gags’ for
Charlie Chester and other top comedians of the day.) There have
been many reprints since 1968 and the book remains a best seller
for the Society. This was almost certainly the first of its many
book publications.
The 4th and last of Vol. 1’s issues was
published in the September. An inside cover Society advert asks
us if we are ‘Worried about Christmas presents’. Books
and L.P. records are suggested, also the Baggeridge Colliery commemorative
medallion at 25/-, enamel brooches ‘made in the traditional
manner’ also for 25/-, and two ‘Special Black Country
Christmas Cards’ for 9d. each with envelopes. In his editorial,
Harold still pushes magazine sales by telling us, ‘Vol.
1 exists. Vol. 2 can be even better’ and ‘Larger readership
can bring so much: colour, more pages, reduction in price’.
John Brimble also informs us ‘membership is increasing at
a steady rate’. John’s ‘Society Notes’
talks of one the Society’s aims being ‘to preserve
and maintain old local traditions’. He mentions in particular
the Tipton Wakes, and that on Saturday, 6th July, 1968, at the
Ward Arms Hotel, Dudley, ‘a commemoration dinner of duck
and peas, followed by a dance was held in its memory’.
By now the reader becomes aware of the more regular
contributors to the magazine. Dr Fletcher, John Brimble, H. D.
Poole and Frank Pepworth had all published more than one article;
and Jean Marsh her third item under the banner of ‘Black
Country Mysteries and Oddities’; also R. E. Boffey had followed
his excellent piece on ‘Sandwell Priory,’ with a second
on ‘Dudley Priory’. It’s disappointing not to
find a Harold Parsons interview in this issue but he does tell
us about T. H. Gough, the original collector of Black Country
Stories. Peter Barnsley writes of ‘A 19th Century Curate’,
the first of his many contributions. In previous magazines there
had been only one or two items written in a Black Country dialect;
however, in this issue we suddenly have four, plus two sizeable
extracts in other articles. I recall our typesetter saying something
about this, he (a ‘Brummie’), describing it as being
‘worse than a foreign language to set’. The Blackcountryman
was finding its way around the world, as shown with effect in
the ‘Correspondence’ section where Harold prints his
‘Star letter from Canada’. Written by a Mr Bartley
of Calgary, he says, ‘The more I travel and the longer I’m
away from the Black Country, the more I come to realise what a
fascinating part of the world it is.’ A. J. Yorke writes
of The Blackcountryman, finding it ‘a most interesting and
absorbing publication’. There is no doubt that this section
is fast gaining in popularity as a voice-box for readers to air
their views.
Returning to the advertising, it’s interesting
to note how the magazine moved forward from the limited number
in the first issue. By No. 4, we not only have the local advertising
such as one for ‘Chapman’s of Old Hill’ (still
supporting the magazine today), but also Hudsons Bookshops Ltd.
of Birmingham, Pelham Books Ltd. of London, and ‘David and
Charles’ of Newton Abbot.
By the end of 1968, with a membership of almost
500, both magazine and Society were, as they remain today, a powerful
voice and firmly established part of Black Country life. Following
his original meeting with Harold Parsons, I recall my employer,
W. Howard Taylor, coming to me and saying of The Blackcountryman,
“Of course, it will never last”: if only he could
see it now. Long may both Society and magazine continue.
|