Really pleased that this chunky chapter 4 I wrote about the New October Poets appears in the new book Spoken Word In The UK (edited by Professor Lucy English and Jack McGowan) with inspiring and confident commentaries from Dreadlockalien, Moqapi Sellassie, Maxwell Golden, Kimberly Trusty, Yaz Alexander and Spoz. There is also a terrific concert and online book launch with Shropshire's Get A Word In Edgeways Festival on Thursday 13 May 2021, 8-10pm with Dreadlockalien, Spoz, the editors Lucy and Jack and much more - click here for a ticket: Thursday 13th May 2021 - Online Concert - The Wenlock Edge Festival of the Spoken Word. (getawordinedgeways.co.uk)
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The incredible poet Michael Rosen (who has a great new book out called Many Different Kinds of Love this March, 2021) was kind enough to retweet this short poem I wrote for Valentine's Day. So, although I've sent very few of my poems out - a re-tweet is a sort of publication for me any day. Enjoy and more blog news to come - soon - about a few little initiatives I hope you might like.
A week ago or so I bumped into my friend Kate Slade, she was lolling on the grass at Warley Woods. I've been doing that nearly every day since 23 March. Sometimes after and sometimes before a walk. Kate mentioned people writing about how they have used and (hopefully) enjoyed the woods since the life altering horror of Coronavirus. I said I had a few ideas already jotted down and to mark National Poetry Day on Thursday 1st October, 2020 I felt inclined to share this new piece.
Many years ago, I got tired of being simply sheared and looking like an identikit Action Man with a number one cut. So, I took another look round Bearwood and found Alberto & Raffaelle “Ladies and Gents Hairstylist” as it still proclaims outside their premises on the Bearwood Road. No appointment necessary and a copy of The Mirror or The Sun was always available if there was someone else in the chair and you were prepared to wait.
His fellow Italian business partner, Alberto, retired last year. He cut the ladies hair and Raff cut the men’s hair. So, for around five months Raff enjoyed being king of his own castle, until Covid-19 struck the nation’s high streets and his skilful, busy scissors stopped snipping and snapping away. I’m told he’s not returning so I feel compelled to write this note of appreciation. The cheery banter, or thoughtful silence, as he trimmed and cut your hair has come to a halt and I for one, among so many other customers around Bearwood, will miss his courteous and cheery chat, excellent haircuts and styling - with real scissors, not the basic buzz cut, hair clipper for everything. I guess, like many other men of a certain age, the light-hearted banter, family news, death and local disasters – all kinds of chat and little, shared confidences while we sat in the chair will also be missed. I’d always joke about him finally qualifying as a hair stylist one day and he’d always remind me of his high water/salad days of working as a barber around Birmingham New Street earning lots more for a hair cut and doing longer hours too. But, while he was here in the slower suburb of Bearwood he got by for many years, over twenty? Maybe more. I’m not sure, but he’s cut and styled an awful lot of hair from the men and boys of around Bearwood. Of course, new hair stylists have always popped up along the Bearwood Road and for that plenty are grateful. However, for Raff, if anyone sees him around, tell him thanks from all of his former customers, like me, Adrian, and his hair styling certificate - to commemorate, prove and demonstrate that he has finally qualified with Bearwood Honours - has just arrived! So, thank you, Raff! An Italian gent who remains ‘a cut above’ the average. Adrian Johnson makes a personal response to a box of beautiful symbols of protest and revolt across the West Midlands of England between 1984-85 A few years ago my friend, Lianne, rescued a small, under considered box of badges while working at a charity shop in the west midlands of England and put a call out on social media for anyone that might be interested in them. I said I’d love to take a look and of course it got me thinking. How badges are often circular and smooth, how stories are often circular and tell us certain truths, sometimes more about the author than the drama itself. So, the first thought that struck me is who collected them? Also, why were they given up and sent off to the charity shop? Well, I guess the original male or female collector must be making an even closer, breathless, personal connection with the colourful and bold imagery that features on most of the one inch in diameter, gold enamelled, badges which commemorate the old black gold, King Coal and the miner’s strike of 1984.
Beauty and economy of scale As I rummaged through the plastic box of industrial treasures I am most struck by the beauty and economy of scale achieved in the images contained in the badge designs which were produced by the miners and their families that cherished and cared for their jobs at all the different pits around the country, and the West Midlands in particular. All seriously threatened with closure by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party in their second term of Government. Now for me, whenever I think of coal mining, I don’t just think of the two major coal miner strikes. I also recall George Orwell’s incredibly gritty journey down a mine shaft in The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) where he remarked: “Our civilization … is founded on coal, more completely than one realizes until one stops to think about it. The machines that keep us alive, and the machines that make machines, are all directly or indirectly dependent upon coal. In the metabolism of the Western world the coal-miner is second in importance only to the man who ploughs the soil. He is a sort of caryatid upon whose shoulders nearly everything that is not grimy is supported. For this reason the actual process by which coal is extracted is well worth watching, if you get the chance and are willing to take the trouble. And now a similar reason spurs me on to consider the badges which were commissioned and sold for a few pounds to raise funds for their strike action to try and save their jobs, living standards and communities, almost forty years ago. Littleton Colliery in Cannock Chase, West Midlands A lot of the badge collection features the Littleton Miners contribution to the 1984-5 strike. And here a bit of research informs the interested reader that this mine was first established in 1877 by the Cannock and Huntingdon Colliery Company. The pit went on to become one of the largest in the West Midlands and the last colliery that remained on Cannock Chase. It was also modernised by the National Coal Board and in 1982 employed 1,900 miners, mining nearly a million tonnes of coal. At the end of 1992, Littleton Colliery was designated as a “core” pit by the Conservative government of the time, briefly sparing the site from the fate of hundreds of other mines which were shut down between 1984 and 1994. Now the area hosts a new school on the former colliery site and a nearby Amazon warehouse. So perhaps the original keeper and collector of these badges came from Littleton? They may have been a miner or a miner’s wife. Perhaps they were collected by a member of a miner’s support group which sprang up in response to the privations and political push to crush the coal industry and finish their union. It’s hard to tell. Lianne feels they might have been collected by a woman and certainly there are some hints and clues for this. Some of the badges feature women’s support groups from Derby and Walsall for example. Also, the box of beautiful enamel badges does also feature and contain a silver, lucky charm sized Davy lamp on a necklace. So, perhaps…? However, there are a few lapel badges more suited to a man’s jacket lapels, so maybe…? Matthew Boulton’s coins, commemorative medals and badges Anyway, did I mention stories, like badges, are sometimes circular? Or at least they curve to meet their writer and reader? Well my other writing and storytelling enthusiasm is for the three great ‘golden boys’, the West Midlands industrialists Boulton, Watt and Murdoch – especially William Murdoch. But that is another story. For this story of a simple Tupperware box of badges Mathew Boulton is especially significant as his very successful copper mint, established over two hundred years ago made coins and commemorative medals which secured Sandwell and Birmingham’s historic connection with the renowned steam powered presses and power pumps that to this very day continue to power and influence badge, coin and medal manufacturing. Production of these same items continues around the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham. Badge makers like Fattorini of Regent Street, Badges Plus of Summer Lane and W. Reeves & Company of Tenby Street. All these company names appear on the reverse side of several of Lianne’s wonderful box of enamel badges which colourfully recall those who supported the coal mining communities that were threatened and ultimately closed within a period of just ten years. So, although current government policies relentlessly and mistakenly promote STEM (science, technology, Engineering and Maths) in schools Lianne’s box of badges beautifully demonstrate and combine all the elements of science, technology, engineering, ARTS and maths - STEAM. Imagination, design and manufacturing all combined to create these beautiful enamel badges which obviously involved passion for design, artistry and an acute awareness of traditional imagery of the kind familiar to those at work in Matthew Boulton’s Soho works all those years ago. Many of the badges feature a pick and shovel, a miners Davy lamp, railways, mining tunnels, colliery wheels and fraternal hands (similar to Matthew Boulton’s first coin designs of 1797) that reach out to the viewer as well as help dig the coal and cradle a child. Of all the collected enamel badges in the box it is perhaps safe to imagine the unknown collector worked or had a strong association with Littleton Colliery in Cannock Chase. There are also badges from Nottingham Area NUM, Goldthorpe NUM, Dearne Valley NUM, Highgate NUM and assorted Women’s support groups. They all have great beauty and dignity – just imagine the discussions the men and women must have had about organising and commissioning the art work and images which would feature on their own badge to sell and help raise funds for the strike committees and food collections for the miners on strike without food or income for a year. Littleton Ladies Against Pit Closures For me the beautiful gold, aquamarine and navy blue enamel badge of the alliterative ‘Littleton Ladies Against Pit Closures’ is especially beautiful. It was made in Birmingham by Badges Plus and features the ubiquitous miners Davy Lamp, pick and shovel but also the less common image of a bird in flight - with a feather in its beak. A moving, golden symbol of flight, freedom and nest building a home for everyone connected with the endangered pit at Littleton. I wonder if an inspired miner’s wife or thoughtful miner added that delicate and endearing image of the bird in flight? We can only imagine, though there will be someone more closely associated with Littleton who will know for sure. NUM Highgate Branch Another gorgeous and evocative enamel badge in the collection comes from the ‘NUM Highgate Branch.’ Red, gold and black feature on this circular gem of simplicity and beautiful pared back artistry. In simple lines there is an upturned U, representing the coal mining tunnel. Sat beneath it, back to back are two figures on a flatbed rail trolley. It’s a sublimely meditative and evocative image. The economy of scale is quite terrific and packs so much into such a small space of well under one inch (2cm) in diameter. Imagine sitting there with your workmate, back to back, quiet and about to be carried into the coal black darkness. The gold lettering also reminds the viewer of the old black gold of King Coal and how little those that dug it were ever really paid for it. Notts Miners Forum The next especially eye catching enamel badge which I want to explore is the oval shaped enamel badge of the ‘Notts Miners Forum’ which combines the imagery of the NUM coat of arms with a light giving Davy Lamp held up high in the evidently strong, muscular, miners forearm complete with their sleeves heartily rolled up to their elbow. It’s simply copper gold with shiny enamel varnish carrying the simple statement “Re-build Unity”. Which, of course anyone that knows about the miner’s strike in Nottingham will fully understand why that short statement carries so very much, in so few words. I myself, at the time, was an undergraduate at Nottingham’s then Trent Polytechnic and well recall the stunning films I saw at the students union meetings in Clifton showing how the TV news reports were cut and re-arranged to discredit the pickets. I also recall trying to travel out to a small Nottinghamshire village with five other students in the Spring of 1984. We had a show about bullying and comic book heroes for primary school children and I was Gripper Grape, all dressed up with plumped up pillows to make a huge,, round green villain. There were other assorted heroes and villains in the van, but non of us got to perform for the schoolchildren of Nottingham that day as we were all suspected of being villainous flying pickets! Oh dear. We got turned back by the police on the motorway and that was that. Veteran, Orgreave Another of the nearly one hundred enamel badges in a box is the gold and black badge which features the resonant 5 words “Veteran Orgreave June 19 1984”. Alongside it is a silhouette of a mounted horse rider swinging a bat. No prizes for guessing who got hit and who did the hitting on that terrible day for miners standing up for their jobs and family livelihoods. 1,700 other badges Elsewhere I hope to show and share other images of the collection. They are redolent and evocative of so much. Courage, bravery, pride and artistry by people just like you and me that continues today, though not quite so obviously or in such a great mass of revolt and resistance across the UK. There are also one or two well researched and better detailed histories of miner’s strike badges, most notably by Brian Witts in his comprehensive review of 1,700 badges in his handsome volume Enamel Badges of the National Union of Miners (2008). I really just want them to go somewhere they can be appreciated As things gradually emerge from the poisonous cloud of Covid-19 a sharing event, discussion and/or reminiscence session or two in and around Bearwood seems very appropriate and likely. Lianne is committed to finding the best place to show and share them safely and that is certainly the very best future for the collection which might eventually find a home with a major national museum or regional gallery. Let us hope so and be glad that, ultimately, as Lianne says “I really just want them to go somewhere they can be appreciated.” As do I hope a suitable place to show and share these glorious emblems of the West Midlands ambition for something better can eventually be secured for everyone to enjoy, wonder about and learn from them. What do you think? Feel free to say and get in touch. And finally, here’s a bit more from George Orwell to finish off with: it keeps us alive, and we are oblivious of its existence. More than anyone else, perhaps, the miner can stand as the type of the manual worker, not only because his work is so exaggeratedly awful, but also because it is so vitally necessary and yet so remote from our experience, so invisible, as it were, that we are capable of forgetting it as we forget the blood in our veins. In a way it is even humiliating to watch coal-miners working. It raises in you a momentary doubt about your own status as an 'intellectual' and a superior person generally. For it is brought home to you, at least while you are watching, that it is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior. You and I and the editor of the Times Lit. Supp., and the poets and the Archbishop of Canterbury and Comrade X, author of Marxism for Infants--all of us really owe the comparative decency of our lives to poor drudges underground, blackened to the eyes, with their throats full of coal dust, driving their shovels forward with arms and belly muscles of steel. I did say stories and badges have a kind of circularity. Adrian Johnson, MSc. Bearwood, Smethwick August, 2020 Bibliography Birmingham City Council/Yale University Press (2009) Matthew Boulton: Selling What All The World Desires, Ed. Shena Mason Orwell, George (1957) Inside The Whale and Other Essays, Penguin Books Powell, Liane (2020) Interview with the author, Adrian Johnson (26 Aug 2020) Witts, Brian (2008) http://www.mining-memorabilia.co.uk/MembersPublications.htm#Enamel%20Badges%20of%20the%20N.U.M For around ten of the one hundred and twenty years of its existence the art of walking along my road appeared to be dying out in favour of whizzing up and down the road in a car. Beep that horn and rattle the double-glazed windows with your own choice of overly loud music. Oh, I hear you have.
However, for nine of the ten lock down weeks for Covid-19 a new craze has emerged. Walking up the road and walking down the road. Not only that but teenage sisters on roller blades have wobbled merrily by and wheeled down the centre of the road as the cars decorate the roadside with bright blobs of cherry red, racing car green and battle ship grey. The open gym of paving slabs is kissed gently by the brilliant blue sky while the whir of car wheels on tarmac is paused for a natural, relaxing sound scape of chiff-chaffs, wood pigeons and swifts gently whisking the air at sun up and sun down. And the walkers, family size, hand in hand, chat and walk on. Cyclists pedal power by the carefree and school free hopscotch, pavement chalkers. Push chairs rattle and roll by dog walkers and postal workers. How busy, how lovely is this pathway out of the coronavirus business of love and loss, home truths and political lies. And then the key workers went and unlocked something unexpected and precious for all of us on this street. Their gift of selfless service in the face of viral darkness gave us hope. And in return we gave generous applause from our doorsteps for ten weeks every Thursday night while the walkers kept walking up the street and down the street, stopping and starting to talk to their neighbours who were always their but busy and not always around when you are, except for these ten weeks of lockdown life and death, fear and friendly laughter with neighbours that will always walk among us on this street and yours. In the eighth week of lock down part of my new normal is to enjoy a circular cycle ride around Smethwick and Oldbury. It takes in views of the currently closed Thimblemill Library and Thimblemill Brook - resplendent in spring time pink and white apple blossom, dazzling bright buttercups, clumps of brilliant bright bluebells and tall, swaying Bishops Goutweed is cast widely over the brook like delicate white lace. Dandelions and their silver seed heads are also scattered along my way up Norman Road which is mostly clear of cars and the blue sky gently kisses the kerb and tarmac before me. It is quite beautiful and comes instead of a trip to Clent or a train ride to Barmouth or Borth.
The new normal also includes small pockets of activity with line men fixing up and hanging new 5G fibre phone cables or laying new pipe ways while the majority STAY HOME and SAVE THE NHS from its own government's decade of cuts and sell offs. Fortunately, we all know builders don't get Corona Virus and the daily 5 O'clock TV roll calls of death in figures that hover around 500 a day, well, they are just others, not us. So that's all right then, isn't it? Phew! Anyway, I must push on. The wheels turning, gears sliding into place and semi detached houses with brilliant white double glazing whir by as I pedal and push, pedal and push FORWARD like the Birmingham motto. Because I can. And somehow that's a comfort amidst this virus and chaos, just doing the simple things, helping when and where I can, before all of this, just pedal and push. It's a welcome rhythm, my hour without lycra or TV exercise gurus, good and bad news on the radio or antisocial media. And then, suddenly as Bleakhouse Library comes into view I see to the right hand side of me an elderly, plump man, on the cross roads between Bleakhouse Road and Broadway Road. I notice he is stooping and tending to his dog as I slow up for the lights that are sadly going from Green, to Amber then Red. So, I stop and notice his hair. No Covid Haircut for him. Instead he has a bright yellow clump of hair flowing out into a pointed wavy cone from the side of his head. On the other side I notice a clump and wavy cone of red hair and at the front he has a long wavy blue fringe. But, that was not all as further back from his fringe was a patch of green hair and beyond that at the back was a purple splash of colour and unkempt hair. I shouted over to him "Nice Hair there!" and he simply shouted back "Thank You!" Well, I hadn't seen anything quite like that and as I pedal and push Forward towards the closed up, silent and dry pub, The George, I decide it would be great to cycle back and ask if I could take a picture of his colourful hair 'style.' Well, as I cycled back and looked down Broadway I couldn't see him so I then cycled back towards the imposing Saint Hubert's church along Bleakhouse Road and I still can't find him, his colourful shock of hair, or his dog. So, I turned back and took a left at the Bleakhouse and Broadway crossroad lights and caught up with a couple of teenage girls taking their hour of exercise nearby the Bleakhouse Library. I ask them '"have you by any chance seen an old man with a dog and brightly coloured hair?" and as I finish my sentence one of the girls sharply nudges the other one and they just keep walking away from me at faster pace without any further need for talk. I say "I'm not mad you know" though as I say these famous, reassuring words I realised that was that. No picture of the man with a dog and brightly coloured hair to prove it and show it. So, on my bike, I pedal and push FORWARD into the new normal of nature's reassuring bright colours, blue skies, and infernal virus. No one will believe this - with or without pictures. The Bearwood Free School 2020At Christmas time, 2019, I thought, after completing eight years of full time teaching English and Drama, it would be nice to teach in a different more relaxed way, maybe part time, tuition or supply, after a small break and some creative writing of my own. Well, the world has suddenly changed but my skills and enthusiasm for poetry, fiction and Shakespeare remain just the same. So, I am offering a daily 60 minutes of informal and purposeful English and drama writing related lessons/activities for pupils around Bearwood from Year 7 to Year 10. We will use Zoom for interacting and the digital class size will be a maximum of 8 pupils per lesson. Depending on who wants to join, it is FREE and will be for Year 7s on Monday - Friday at 10.45am to 11.45am or, depending on demand, year 8s/9s/10, TBC. Get in touch, by email using the CONTACT page to confirm your Bearwood address (street only, no number required) and express your interest/enrol with details of your son or daughter's age for the first week of lessons (hopefully) beginning on Monday 30th March, 2020. There will be no exams, though expectations will be high. Areas of work will focus on monologues, poetry and consideration of the best bits from Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and classic texts including Of Mice and Men and An Inspector Calls. This voluntary offer in extraordinary times is subject to amendment and review on a weekly basis. Do join me and let's try something new. Please note I am not employed by any school but in the last eight years across Birmingham I have taught in a Grammar, Comprehensive and Free school.
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