Birmingham deserves better than London’s sneers – here’s why
Birmingham has once again become the focus of another national newspaper’s opinion section. Dr Steve McCabe criticises the article as an “ill-hidden critique of a city he appears not to understand”.
“Not for the first time is Birmingham in the headlines. I refer to the Times article ‘Can Birmingham beat the constant bashing?’ published on Monday and written by columnist Will Lloyd who, his brief bio tells us, lives in Bloomsbury in London.
A fair number of the comments from readers of Lloyd’s article believe he’s been unfair to Brum.
To be fair to him, Lloyd commences with a summary of Birmingham’s history. If you’ve not read the book to which Lloyd refers, Second City by historian Richard Vinen, who grew up in Birmingham as the son of an academic, but who left to become an academic in London, I’d strongly recommend you do.
Second City is a magnificently written overview of the origins of Birmingham when it was a settlement in 1086 with fewer than ten people – Villa supporters will be proud to know that by comparison it had 44 – to the densely urban sprawl with, according to the latest census in 2021, a population of 1.158 million.
Significantly, as Vinen acknowledges, manufacturing made Birmingham great following the industrial revolution.
However, in achieving the ultimate accolade as being a ‘Motor town’ in both making cars, as well as their components, under Birmingham’s chief engineer Herbert Manzoni, allowed itself to be redesigned to give primacy to four wheeled vehicles that has allowed begrudgers to criticise the city’s tendency to make humans secondary, all too frequently, force them into notoriously inhospitable underpasses.
For many casual visitors, arrival into Birmingham may be via the amusingly named ‘Spaghetti Junction’ (Gravelly Hill Interchange) and Aston Expressway which, I accept, are not notable for the most appealing vista.
Alternatively, until the redevelopment of New Street Station, visitors would arrive to be greeted by a claustrophobic concourse which funnelled people out towards architecture that would not be out of place is Stanely Kubricks’ dystopian – and infamous – film A Clockwork Orange.
Much has changed for the better though, to be honest, I liked the grim and industrial Birmingham I grew up in; my dad worked at Longbridge for a time and my mom spent over 20 years working for Lucas on Shaftsmoor Lane after they gave up running their café in Acocks Green.
Making things has always been misunderstood, especially by London-based journalists who, arguably, wouldn’t understand the dubious joy of working in a machine shop or the utterly distinct smell of the oil needed to keep the production process flowing, quite literally, smoothly.
Another excellent book I’d recommend is The Lunar Men by Jenny Uglow which describes The Lunar Society of Birmingham, by which prominent figures including
Matthew Boulton, Erasmus Darwin, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Samuel Galton, Joseph Priestley, James Watt and Josiah Wedgwood regularly met to discuss their ideas and provide a way to distil their empirical observations.
History acknowledges the fact that these individuals provided the theories essential to making the machines work that were crucial to creating the output of factories noted as making Birmingham the ‘workshop of the world’.
However, as some point out, those with dirt under their fingernails, as the members of the Lunar Society would have had as active industrialists, probably made them seem more parochial and possibly less revered than those who lived in the capital and faced nothing more daunting than avoiding horse manure on their way to the coffee house!
So, and with reference to Lloyd’s ill-hidden critique of a city he appears not to understand as a casual visitor – and he’s not the first to engage in Brum-bashing – there’s the problem that the golden days of mass employment in manufacturing in Birmingham are over.
Sych employment, which over the last two centuries welcomed newcomers from all parts of the British Isles and, of course, in recent decades, from the rest of the world, may have been dirty and not what people wanted for their children, but it provided decent wages that allowed families to build better lives.
If there’s evidence of decline in Birmingham so readily identified by reporters representing the metropolitan elite from the Big Smoke, it’s not happened by accident.
It’s easily forgotten that in the 1960s Birmingham was viewed enviously by London because of its rapid economic development.
Birmingham needed to be reigned in to avoid it overheating the line went.
Unfortunately, by the 1970s, such concerns were replaced by warnings of the dangers of inflation through wage growth and the need for unions to be curbed.
Reporting of over-zealous unions defending their members were almost always accompanied by striking workers at the once huge car plant at Longbridge which has now disappeared under housing and a shopping centre.
Effectively, the narrative from London was that something needed to be done to bring manufacturing workers under control.
It’s perhaps no coincidence that today marks the 50th anniversary of the emergence of the one person who is widely believed to have done more to end the era of mass employment in manufacturing that created deep emotional scars still experienced in Birmingham.
On 11 th February 1975 Margaret Thatcher became the leader of the Conservative Party that has suffered two election defeats to Labour the previous year.
In becoming Prime Minister four years later her ideology was to make Britain competitive through attacks on the parts of industry she considered unwilling to swallow her fiscal medicine.
Ultimately, like many cities and towns north of the Watford Gap, Birmingham suffered the sort of decline that’s blighted generations since Thatcher’s time in power.
Matters have, of course, not been helped by the woes of the City’s Council which declared itself bankrupt.
To give Birmingham City Council credit, it has valiantly attempted to address the social decline suffered in many parts of the city, especially amongst communities in which deprivation is now widespread.
So, to the likes of Will Lloyd and others who visit Birmingham as a day-tripper, I’d suggest spending a couple of nights here to sample the wonderful cuisine and culture that’s available in all parts of the city.
Equally, I’d also recommend a visit to out many theatres and museums.
For sure, we can’t offer what’s available in the West End and we don’t have Buckingham Palace or the well-heeled areas of Mayfair, Kensington or even Bloomsbury, but we can offer equally pleasant tree-lined suburbs and some cracking parks including Cannon Hill, Sutton and the joys of walking around our world-
renowned Jewellery Quarter followed by a drink in the many welcoming pubs. It's easy to know a place you don’t really understand.
As someone who’s spent the majority of his life in this great city, I could be accused of being biased.
That’s true and you can’t throw brickbats at a place that holds so many happy memories.
Maybe it’s time we Brummies rediscovered the sort of brio that once resulted us putting in a bid to host the 1992 Olympic Games.
The stunning 2022 Commonwealth Games allowed this city to showcase at its best and allowed us to have a good laugh as the visitor who was amazed Birmingham’s citizens are not grey in colour!!
Oh, I forgot, Brummies are supposed to hide their lights under bushels. Well, maybe it’s time for that to change.