11-11-11: Aston Lane

Am 11. November 2008 Clare und ich verbrachten einige Stunden circumnavigating die Stadt von Birmingham auf dem Bus der Nr. 11. Dieses wasn' t unsere Idee, verstehen Sie. Eher war es das Geistesprodukt der Jon Bounds der erstaunlichen Brum-gegründeten Web site Birmingham: It' s Nicht Schit.


Birchfield Library

At about 2.30pm we leave Wellington Road and cross the Perry Barr roundabout on Birchfield Road. Although I'm no stranger to this area, this is an odd approach for me. I regularly drive along the Birchfield Road, but I usually take the underpass that runs beneath the traffic island. Here's a picture of the underpass from when it was under construction in 1961, courtesy of Digital Handsworth:


That's The Old Crown and Cushion pub in the background, which has changed a lot since then. Luckily the underpass has too, otherwise it'd be a bugger to drive through.

One of the advantages of seeing the world from the front seat of the top deck of a number 11 bus is that you get to witness all the juicy street level stuff you'd normally miss while driving through underpasses and along flyovers. That's why I'm surprised to see that the library that used to sit on the corner of Birchfield Road and Aston Lane has now been demolished, and that's why I say out loud (and a bit too loudly): "Where the fuck did that go?"

Someone sitting behind me lets out an audible tut. As we're sitting on the front seat, "someone sitting behind me" hardly narrows it down, so I let it pass.

Maybe I'm too sensitive about these things, but there's something about the sight of a demolished library building that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Didn't this country once take a moral stand against a cruel and evil regime that was more than a tad partial to burning books? If so, then how can we turn a blind eye and let such wanton acts of anti-intellectualism escalate on our own doorstep? I imagine it's because we're all too busy driving through the underpasses and along the flyovers of life.

Let's just hope that all the books got out in one piece.


Tufnol Factory, Aston Lane

At Aston Lane the bus stops for what seems like seventeen years. As the Wellhead Lane depot is nearby, I assume that the bus has to change drivers, the driver has to take a leak or the leak has to change buses.

I notice an elderly couple get on board. The man is wearing an Edwardian-looking suit, sporting a pair of jam jar glasses and bears an uncanny resemblance to the great Irish writer James Joyce. I can't say whether his companion resembles Joyce's wife and muse Nora Barnacle, but that's only because I can't remember what Nora Barnacle looked like.

Along Aston Lane, on the corner of Wellhead Lane, we pass the Tufnol factory. Tufnol, in case you don't know, is a firm based in Birmingham and Glasgow who have been producing rods, sheets and other laminated plastic products for over 70 years. The reason why I know this is because my Uncle Eddie used to work there. Uncle Eddie was one of my favourite people in the world. He had a sense of humour was as dry as a sand sandwich and he always made sure that my family were never short of rods, sheets and other laminated plastic products. I miss him.

As we pass the Tufnol factory I realise that it's been years' since I last travelled along Aston Lane. That's why I'm quite surprised to see a massive, new 24 hour Tesco Superstore, and that's why I say out loud (and a bit too loudly): "Where the fuck did that come from?"

Someone sitting behind me lets out an audible tut.

I think it might be James Joyce.

11-11-11: Crown and Cushion, Perry Barr

Le 11 novembre 2008 Clare et moi avons passé plusieurs heures circumnavigating la ville de Birmingham sur l'autobus du numéro 11. C'était idée de limites de Jon Bounds de 'Birmingham: n'est pas Merde.'


We're still on the number 11 bus, we're still in Perry Barr and we're now passing the Crown and Cushion pub. There's been a Crown and Cushion standing at the corner of Wellington Road and Birchfield Road for as long as I remember, although it hasn't always been this Crown and Cushion.

The current incumbent is a fairly modern-looking, functional affair that, by my somewhat unreliable estimation, was constructed in the late 1980s or possibly even the early-1990s. I wasn't on the number 11 at the time so I didn't take any notes.

It was built on the site of a more traditional looking red brick boozer called, unsurprisingly, The Old Crown and Cushion. As I recall, across the road from what used to be The Old Crown and Cushion was a smaller pub squeezed between a row of shops on Birchfield Road. It was called The New Crown and Cushion.

Now, I'm no expert on pub name etymology, but I think its safe to assume that the New Crown and Cushion was a late arrival on the scene. Being a younger pub, I imagine it was a bit of an upstart fuelled by youthful exuberance and swaggering cockiness, although it probably skipped on the the piss and vinegar for health and safety reasons.

It must have felt a bit annoyed when the Old Crown and Cushion was bulldozed and replaced with a Crown and Cushion that was newer than 'The New Crown and Cushion'. For one thing, it had to change its name.

For some reason this makes me think of Spinal Tap.

11-11-11: St Theresa's Club, Perry Barr

On 11^th November 2008 Clare and I spent several hours circumnavigating the city of Birmingham on the number 11 bus. This wasn't our idea, you understand. Rather, it was the brainchild of Jon Bounds of the marvelous Brum-based website Birmingham: It's Not Shit. You can read about it here.

While some tech-savvy contributors to this social experiment provided a real-time, multi-channel omnifeed of sights, sounds and experiences, I preferred a more 20^th Century approach and instead scribbled down my thoughts in a notepad with the intention of writing it all up on my blog the following day.

This process is taking somewhat longer than I'd anticipated.

At about 2.25pm on the 11th November 2008 the number 11 bus - our number 11 bus - makes its way along Church Lane, past Hamstead Road, up Wellington Road and down Memory Lane.

We're in Perry Barr, now, and - seeing as how I spent many of my formative years living in nearby Kingstanding - this stretch of the route turns out to be pretty damn evocative for me. Many of the buildings we pass seem to resonate with all kinds of personal significance and I soon find myself embarking on an unscheduled detour via the outer circle of my brain. There's no mention of that in the official timetable.

Over there, to the left, is the Holy Roman Catholic parish church of St Theresa's. That gets me thinking about two of my closest friends - both former parishioners - and of gatherings, both happy and sad. Next, to the right, is a garden centre. A dim, nebulous childhood memory flickers and sizzles and struggles to take form. It seems to involve me shopping for shrubbery with my parents on a wet Sunday afternoon in 1981. I decide to let it go.

Then, just a little further along and to the left, I catch a glimpse of a modest-looking building you probably wouldn't notice if you didn't already know it was there. Tucked away just off Wellington Road, behind what used to be a bed warehouse, is St Theresa's Social Club.

St Theresa's Club in Perry Barr used to be one of my family's most regular haunts. It's been more than a decade since I last paid it a visit and, as we pass it now, I find myself sliding into a synaesthetic spiral of sentimentality. Family snapshots cascade through my cortex as I taste the velvety richness of a perfectly-pulled pint of Guinness, smell the aroma of stale cigarette smoke and hear the sound of Irish Music being played with varying degrees of authenticity. The experience is quite overpowering and leaves me feeling a bit like a bad Caffreys ad.

The St Theresa's regulars I got to know were all friends of my parents' who, like my Mum & Dad, were part of that big wave of Irish migrants who arrived in Birmingham during the 1950s and 60s. When I was in my late-teens and early-twenties I shared many a raucous night in their company and - despite the not inconsiderable age gap - they were often more amusing, unpredictable and interesting than many of my peers. Back then, they'd often comment on how much better the place was in the old days, but from my experience of this demographic they'd usually say that about most places. Of course, if I got off the number 11 bus and popped into St Theresa's now I'd probably also comment on how much better it was in the old days. From my experience of my demographic, we say this about most places, too.

But still, I couldn't help but wonder. On many of those raucous nights I'd often find myself imagining what places like St Theresa's club were like in their heyday. As I watched the old black and white photos come to life, it certainly seemed a lot busier. Young men in sharp suits were dancing with young women in fine dresses to the tunes of a visiting showband. Over there I can see my parents and their friends sitting at a table, and they're all looking a damn sight younger than me...

Of course, this was just me romanticising the past. I used to do a lot of that, back when I was sentimental.

For the most part, the Irish of my parents' generation didn't come to Birmingham because of its network of canals or extensive collections of pre-Raphaelite art. They came to Birmingham because they were looking for work. When they first arrived they often lived in cramped bedsits or "digs" in inner city areas like Handsworth, Sparkhill and Sparkbrook, and most were prepared to work hard - and work long hours - doing the jobs many of the 'locals' didn't want to do.

They were, to use the modern parlance, economic migrants.

This, of course, was nothing new: leaving home in search of work has always been hard-wired into the Irish DNA. The irony of having these thoughts while sitting on the top deck of the number 11 bus is not lost on me:

"Occupations such as working on buses and trams were rejected by English workers for the higher wages and appealing shorter working hours enjoyed by their counterparts in factories. One contemporary estimated that in just fourteen months in 1946-7 two-thirds of the 6,000 drivers and conductors in Birmingham had resigned and taken other employment. As was the case in London, the local transport authority recruited directly from independent Ireland, continuing in effect a practice initiated during the war that eventually ceased in 1953. By the early 1950s roughly one-third of the transport authority staff were Irish, many of them women. "

Edna Delaney, The Irish in Post-War Britain p 97

Of course, indigenous populations don't always take kindly to people from other countries "taking their jobs", and the Irish influx was often greeted with distrust and even hostility. The fact that the jobs the migrant workers were 'taking' were the ones that nobody else wanted to do was neither here nor there.

I'm so glad that sort of thing doesn't happen any more.

When the Birmingham Irish of my parents' generation first arrived here they worked hard, lived in often squalid conditions, were separated from their loved ones and were often distrusted and disliked. In this context, then, the Irish church clubs in Birmingham played a fairly significant role. With their regular dances and visiting showbands, places like St Theresa's - as well as those other Patron Saints of the Birmingham Irish like St Chad, St Francis and St Catherine – offered the Birmingham Irish a means to reconnect with their culture, reengage with their community and have a bloody good time. More significantly, though, if it wasn't for places like this then people like me probably wouldn't be here today.

My parents met at a dance at St Chads...