The website of the
Black Country Society
Established in 1967 to Support, Record, Preserve and Celebrate the distinct
Character and Nature of the West Midlands area known since the mid nineteenth century as 'The Black Country'
Miscellaneous documents
A programme for a 1950 Trade Exhibition held in Brierley Hill, which gives a list of members of the Brierley Hill Manufacturers and Trader Association, and gives an indication of the breadth of industrial activity at the time.
A transcript of a hand-written manuscript that logged the German air raids carried out in the Midlands during WWII, as hear from Handsworth Wood. The notes are brief, but to those who lived through these times, may be of interest. EA = Enemy Aircraft and AA = Ack Ack (anti-aircraft) defensive Guns.
The Society has been sent (in November 2023) a pdf of "Black Country Ramblings" by Dorothy Cooper, which sets out her childhood reminiscences in Dudley in the 1930s and 1940s before she emigrated to Australia. Her husband, John Brown, writes as follows from New South Wales.
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I think you will find it interesting in that it is different. While written by a woman in her sixties, it has all the character of being written from the heart of a child, in a whimsical and at times humorous vein, and in a style which is purely personal While not a top scholar at Dudley School she frequently came first in "Dictation" tests. The story
starts in an old tenement -("2-down, 2-up") in Dock Lane Dudley, a remnant of industrial era housing with external toilets and laundries and no internal bathrooms. The story goes up through the War, with Dorothy and her mother sleeping under the kitchen table with German bombers overhead. And so on, with numerous childhood events eventually leading up to marriage and emigration to Australia.
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Click on either of the pictures above to open (and if you wish, download) the pdf.
Black Country dialect - a glossary
(Click on image for pdf. Tea Towel available in Society Shop)
